Yorkshire golf: Fulford's Charlie Thornton at home in elite company

And Thornton, who won England Golf’s Boys’ Order of Merit in 2016, did it in style by claiming the prestigious Berkhamsted Trophy, placing his name alongside past winners such as former Open and Masters champion Sandy Lyle and ex-world No 1 Luke Donald.

“I didn’t have a clue about who had won the Berkhamsted before, but the captain of the club was showing me all the names of those who had won it and there are a couple of big names,” says the 18-year-old.

It was his second big victory of the year having previously won the Portugal Intercollegiate title at Penha Longa by seven shots.

The Berkhamsted field proved much tougher opposition and Thornton was taken to a sudden-death play-off where he defeated reigning Yorkshire champion Ben Hutchinson, of Howley Hall.

The key to his victory, he says, was a short-game lesson with Sandburn Hall’s Steve Robinson, who himself claimed a prestigious England Golf award last year by being named coach of the year.

By applying the pointers offered by Robinson, who also coaches Yorkshire’s boys’ and women’s teams, he was able to compensate for some inaccuracies in his iron play.

“I had a really good short game at Berkhamsted,” says Thornton. “I didn’t hit my irons well, but my short game was really quite good.

“I wasn’t hitting many greens, but I was making up-and-downs from everywhere.”

He and Hutchinson are friends through representing the White Rose, but that had to be set aside with the Berkhamsted Trophy at stake in the play-off.

“We played quite a short par-four,” recalls Thornton. “He went first with his approach and missed the green long and left and that’s the worst miss you could have had to that flag. I hit mine to about 10ft. Ben chipped to about six to eight feet and after I just missed birdie short and left, Ben missed his par putt.”

On Friday, Thornton competes in the West of England championship at Saunton, where Huddersfield’s Nick Marsh won the 2014 English amateur title.

Following his two victories to date this season, he will tee it up with great confidence and will be wishing for the weather experienced during his English triumph rather than his Portuguese.

“I played really well at Penha Longa given the weather conditions, which weren’t as nice as they were at Berkhamsted,” he says.

“It was wet and very windy for the whole week, but it is a really nice course and I enjoyed playing there.

“The conditions were really good at Berkhamsted, though; hardly any wind and just sunshine really, which was nice to play in.

“It’s nice to get a win in my second men’s event – the first was the Darwin Salver, and that didn’t go as well,” he laughs.

“I did not enjoy playing around there, the wind was just ridiculous. Obviously Bailey (Gill, from Lindrick, winner of the Salver) did really well, but it just wasn’t golf.”