South of Ireland Championship: Nobody ever doubted that Mervyn Owens had the talent to be a champion golfer, it's just that he took his time delivering the proof, writes Philip Reid at Lahinch.

Yesterday, on the old course at Lahinch, the 22-year-old student - home from a scholarship in Louisiana - showed his predatory instincts when upsetting Walker Cup hopeful and defending champion Colm Moriarty in the final of the South of Ireland Amateur Championship.

In 1998 Owens, then a teenager with a precocious talent who had won the Munster Boys' and figured on the Irish team that won the European Boys' Championship, was called aside for a private putting lesson by Nick Faldo, who was keen to impart some knowledge to a young player who impressed him. Owens was in the Forest of Arden as the Irish representative for the European finals of the Faldo Series where he finished second to Nick Dougherty.

Owens, from Mallow, never truly delivered on all the expectations and hopes placed on his shoulders, until yesterday. On a day when the wind and rain mercifully abated, and playing in his seventh match in four days, Owens showed no signs of battle fatigue and produced a performance of skill and fortitude to eclipse Moriarty by one hole.

On a course redeveloped and toughened in recent years, the finalists produced a showdown to do the great links justice.

If Owens was the underdog at the outset, he threw down the gauntlet from the start. On the first, an uphill par four of 381 yards, he fired in a nine-iron approach shot to 20 feet and holed the birdie putt. On the second, a downhill par five of 534 yards, he hit a second shot to the green and two-putted for another birdie. Two up after two, Moriarty knew that he was in a real battle to become the first player in 40 years to retain the title.

In fact, it became a classic matchplay battle, with Owens striking the ball beautifully and often outdriving Moriarty, a 24-year-old player from Athlone who intends to turn professional after the Walker Cup.

A rare error surfaced in Owens's game on the sixth, where he three-putted from the front of the green. "I think the adrenalin was pumping," he said. His first putt, uphill and into the wind, went 15 feet by the hole, almost off the green, and he failed to make the par putt back.

Moriarty, now one down, had to work hard to get back to all-square. But he succeeded on the 12th, a par five that curls its way around the top end of the links. There, Owens was in trouble right off the tee, then found the rough up the left with his recovery, and sent his third shot over the back where it perched on top of a bunker. Although he got up-and-down for his par, Moriarty sank a 10-footer for birdie to draw level.

It was nip-and-tuck all the way home. Both players lipped out with their birdie putts on the 13th, and Moriarty lost a great chance to go ahead for the first time when leaving his eight-footer for par on the 14th short of the hole.

The decisive moment of the match came on the 15th, a par four of 466 yards, where Moriarty's approach finished in heavy rough left of the green. He failed to save his par, while Owens, who had come up short of the green with his approach and then sent his first putt 12 feet past the hole, successfully holed the par putt back to win the hole.

One up again, the 16th and 17th holes (where Moriarty hit a great approach shot in to eight feet, but missed the birdie putt) were halved in pars. And, for the first time in all the championship, Owens was forced to go up the 18th - and it came down to two attempted birdie putts: Owens's from 14 feet, Moriarty's from eight. When Owens holed his, Moriarty's became immaterial and the match, and title, was won.

"I'm delighted, over the moon," said Owens. "I've become a much more consistent player thanks to my time in America."

Owens, who has a year left of his construction technology studies at the University of Southeastern Louisiana, hopes his win will earn him a place on the Irish team for the Home Internationals in Ballybunion in September and, further down the line, he aspires to making the Walker Cup.

Moriarity hopes for a place on the Walker Cup team in September - the perfect consolation.

SEMI-FINALS: C Moriarty (Athlone) bt J Kehoe (Birr) 3 and 2; M Owens (Mallow) bt M McGeady (City of Derry) 4 and 3.

FINAL: Owens bt Moriarty by 1 hole.