BEN Amor is hoping to muscle in on a successful year after kicking off his season with a fine second-placed finish at last month’s South of England Youth Championships.

The 19-year-old, who is a former England U18s champion and who also won the Wiltshire county championship last year, recovered from a difficult second round to shoot the best two final rounds of the Darwin Salver, held at Rye golf club in East Sussex, finishing four shots behind eventual champion and England team-mate Ashton Turner.

Amor, from Marlborough, says that he’s been putting in the hard yards in the gym over the winter and is hoping that working on his strength, both physical and mental, can help him to shine in 2015.

“(The Darwin Salver) was my first real competition since September, so it was a really good start to the year,” said the youngster.

“I was near to perfect in the last two rounds but I left myself with too much to do to try and win.

“I hit the lowest score on the final day (tied with Oliver Farrell) and I felt really good.

“I’ve been away on a couple of England training camps and I’ve been doing a lot of work on my fitness with Marlborough Performance Centre.

“It does help – you hit the ball further and it means that there isn’t as much wear and tear when you’re competing all the time.

“A lot of golf is mental so it really helps when you don’t have to worry about how you’re getting on physically. Hopefully it will help a lot this year.

“I’ve talked about trying to get to the Walker Cup before but I don’t think that’s too realistic.

“There’s still a lot to come this year and I’m really thinking about the home internationals this year.

“I’ve got the Hampshire Hog on April 18 and 19 and then things start to get busy. I’ve got a lot on my schedule.”