It was a day in which he first saw off the Dutchman who had a 100 percent record on the LGC’s fairways before beating the World number five from Sweden and number one seed in a thrilling Final to become the latest sporting hero here in the Garden of England.In an all Scandinavian final, Ilonen beat Swede Henrik Stenson 3&1 to take the 650,000 Euro first prize to claim his first professional title in England, and leave Stenson to what might have been.The Swede, who of course was one of the unsung heroes of Paul McGinley’s Ryder Cup team, admitted that on Sunday afternoon he ran out of steam after having played a full round twice and all his other three games being decided on the 17th – a 105 holes played from an available 108 in the five days of the event!

The opening nine of the Final was nip and tuck to the extreme as Stenson struck first on the 4th only for Ilonen to level at the 5th and crucially go into the back nine one up courtesy of a birdie two at the 8th. And how important that lead was to prove to be…

The pair halved the tenth and then the Finn struck winning 11 and 12 with a birdie 3 and a par 3 much to Stenson’s dismay! Full credit though to the number one seed as he rallied to win the two par fives (13 and 15) with birdie four’s. Problem for Stenson was that Ilonen had won the par three 14th to keep his two hole lead.

Sixteen was then halved to leave the Finn dormy two and when he birdied 17 he sealed his triumph and afterwards the new Champion admitted, “I see Henrik as one of the world’s top players obviously but he’s also my friend.”

“We’ve played so much golf together over the years, so I felt quite comfortable playing with him. It could have gone either way really. I had a better afternoon than he did. Tomorrow morning we play, it might go the other way!”

Stenson for his part expressed his own surprise at his week in Kent. He was quoted as saying, “I actually exceeded my expectations for the week for sure already.”

“And already when Jonas (Blixt) took me to the 18th yesterday, I felt like we were running low on energy, and against Joost (Luiten) this morning, same thing.”

“So I don’t know where I found that energy to finish that much off in the morning. So I was quite low on energy in the afternoon.”

“I feel like I’ve been battling my swing a little bit in these gusting conditions the last day and a half. I didn’t play my best. I was a bit unlucky on a couple of putts but no question, Mikko didn’t make any mistakes really and when he did, he recovered well. So all the credit to him for his fine performance this week.”

For the record in the play off for third and fourth place Luiten beat George Coetzee on the 19th hole after they were locked at all square after 18.

Both morning Semi Finals were close. Arguably Luiten went into his semi final favourite as he was the only man boasting a 100 percent record having won all three group games as well as his Quarter Final.

But Ilonen edged ahead at the first, and was only headed half way through the back nine after the Dutchman had birdied the 13th. It was the only time that Ilonen was behind as he recovered brilliantly to win 14 and 15 and when he birdied 17 he closed out the match 2&1.

Stenson beat South African Coetzee at the final hole in a contest that could have gone either way. Coetzee won the first two holes and it took until the eighth for Stenson to level, and from then on the pair exchanged holes almost at will… Coetzee won 9, Stenson 10 and 11 was halved; Coetzee 12, Stenson 13; Coetzee 14 and Stenson 15, and after halving 16 and 17, it was the World number five who was to hold his nerve on 18.

Coetzee, who only got into the event on Monday as a late replacement for the injured Thomas Bjørn, was agonisingly close to holing his birdie putt from 20 feet on the last before Stenson made no mistake from a similar distance.

By try as he might Stenson’s run was to come to an end on Sunday afternoon when the annuls of Kent sporting history added a new name – the name of a 35 year old from Lahti in Finland, the name of Mikko Ilonen.