With sunny weather a huge improvement from conditions endured earlier in the week, the crowds came out at L'Ancresse to witness a couple of hard-fought and high-class semi-finals as all participants demonstrated why they had progressed to the last four, but experience proved decisive as four-time winner Danny Blondel and the 2019 champion Jeremy Nicolle combined their skill with nous to book their place in Sunday's showdown.
Blondel was up against another previous finalist in one of Guernsey's US collegiate attendees, Jayden Tucknott, and it was the youngster who struck the first blow by making a nerveless birdie on the first having almost holed his approach shot.
A couple of holes later, though, he was trailing as he twice failed to get up-and-down from off the left-hand side of the both the second and third greens to save par while Blondel maintained his solid start to edge ahead.
From that point on, the L'Ancresse member kept his nose in front with his trademark tee-to-green accuracy forcing Tucknott into trying to find birdies to peg him back.
There was no change in score until they came down the 11th, which was playing down breeze, where the Royal Guernsey player found the bunker with his second while Blondel hit a classy approach into the heart of the green and by the time it was his turn to putt, he already knew he had two for the hole and he happily took them to double his advantage.
Tucknott's tenacity kept his opponent fully focused from there on in, but Blondel did not look anything but zoned in and he still led by two when he put a brilliant wedge to within a couple of feet of the pin at the 16th with what proved to be his fitting final shot of a 3 & 2 victory.
The other semi-final followed a similar script in that Nicolle had a 1 up lead at the turn over Rory McKenna and then doubled it when a four was enough to win the 11th.
However, a rare poor swing on the 12th tee allowed McKenna to get a hole back and he looked in pole position to level the match when he stuck his second on the 13th to within 4ft, but Nicolle rolled in a 12ft birdie putt to earn a crucial half.
There were remarkable scenes on the next as Nicolle played the long 14th via the 10th green following a very wayward drive, but he played a superb recovery and went on to make birdie to match his opponent who played the hole in a more traditional manner.
Both players came extremely close to making birdies on 15, yet somehow their putts refused to drop, and it was much the same story on the next green too.
But their intriguing tussle came to an abrupt end on the 17th as McKenna, knowing he had to be aggressive, put his drive out of bounds and he conceded in the middle of the fairway.
The 36-hole final starts at 9.15am on Sunday, with the afternoon round teeing off at 2pm.
Island Men’s Championship semi-final results
J Nicolle beat R McKenna 2 & 1;
D Blondel beat J Tucknott 3 & 2.
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