Mark Root and Neil Georges won the Sussex PGU Hilary Crowe Pairs Matchplay championship at the 19th after a see-saw tussle lasting five hours.

The win at Royal Eastbourne was the fourth extra hole victory for the combination which were considered outsiders when they teamed-up earlier this year.

There was never more than one hole in it on a balmy day when the tension built up slowly to a climax over the final holes.

On the 17th tee there was little or nothing to chose between the finalists as holes had been won and lost more by default than one pairing establishing a clear mastery.

While a series of outstanding birdie putts went down the scoring, considering the individual efforts of four players were on display, bordered only on the modest.

But that did not detract from the drama as the pairings stood on the 17th tee.

Of the Royal's par threes this is the trickiest green to hit and it played the full 210 yards and the only shot on the dance floor came from Root who needed a four wood while the others flew wide of the mark.

After a fine long approach putt he duly won it with a par.

With the last hole also short, a birdie was on the cards and this came via Newnham's putter from a good 10 yards to send the match into sudden death.

Four spanking drives down the first saw all but Root pepper the pin with their pitches.

For Root, captain of the Sussex PGU, there was the intense disappointment of finding the out of bounds.

By going straight for the stick he ran the risk of ending-up in trouble but already Georges had gone closest with Hinton and Newnham some distance off but looking for birdies.

The latter, of course, had the disadvantage of putting first. After Hinton missed, Newnham, fresh from the heroic saver at the 18th, also failed to read the line correctly.

Georges, whose putter had misbehaved horribly at the 15th, proved equal to the occasion with a birdie over a tricky three and a half feet to settle what had been a long drawn out affair.

As there are three par threes in the last four holes it was bound to be down to putting and the winners were each able to make mistakes but not together at the same hole.

Both pairs were two under after nine holes and all square while nobody was of a mind to concede gimmees.

Then they had been trading blow for blow for the best part of two and a half hours and been told to speed-up by referee Cliff Pluck.

Early on, Root drove majestically, finding the 265-yd second green from the tee and a birdie aided his cause, only for Hinton's at the fourth to square the match. When Newnham holed a 10-yarder at the seventh for a birdie following a superb nine wood, the door had opened slightly, but not for long.

Yet another birdie, this time at the ninth when Georges holed from five yards suggested the match going to the wire and beyond although Root, losing balls at the 10th and 11th, left his partner to hold the fort successfully.

There wasn't a glimmer of change in four inconclusive holes until Georges' masterly taming of the 14th. He followed a huge drive with a seven-yard birdie putt after Root had hooked into nasty rough.

The chance to stay a hole in front fell to Georges at the 15th but his short putt had a mind of its own and if that was a sign of nerves he soon recovered his poise in delivering the coup de grace.

No doubt Newnham reproached himself at the 16th for missing a five-yarder but his defiance at the 18th only demonstrated for the umpteenth time what an unpredictable game golf can be.

The winners were each presented with a cheque for £600 out of the £1,500 prize fund that makes this event so popular among the Sussex professionals who chose their partners cannily rather than indulge in a general excuse-me.