Matt Fitzpatrick had fish and chips and an early night on Saturday and then got up the next morning and won the Silver Medal. His round of 72 put him five shots clear of the only other amateur contender to play the four rounds, Jimmy Mullen of Royal North Devon.

It completes a big few weeks for the 18-year-old British Boys Amateur champion from Sheffield, who took up the game when his father joined the Hallamshire club eight years ago and, having just completed his A-levels, will be heading off to Northwestern University in Chicago in the autumn, the alma mater of Luke Donald.

"It's been an amazing week," Fitzpatrick said. "The high point was probably holing that long putt for birdie on the 16th today, with all the crowd around the green. My dad was holding five fingers up halfway down the 17th and I put two and two together finally and realised I was five ahead [of Mullen]."

Two pars completed the round, the last of them a good up-and-down from 70 yards, and Fitzpatrick finished on 10-over, only one shot worse than his partner Fred Couples, the 1992 Masters champion. "He's very good and doesn't miss many shots," Couples said.

"He hits it straight and, as he gets bigger, he will hit it further but he hits it plenty far. But he's not like one of these crazy bombers you see. He's good.

"At 18 you should putt well and he's a good putter. He was very relaxed. I kept telling him 'good shot'. He made a nice par at 18 and I tried to tell him as much as I could about the greens."

Practice rounds with Rickie Fowler, Hunter Mahan, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, DA Points and Tom Watson helped sharpen Fitzpatrick's links game over the week, and a three-ball with Russell Henley and the 19-year-old Jordan Spieth for the first two rounds helped him settle into the Open routine and, in the case of Henley, even saved him a shot.

"All the pros have been brilliant with him," said Fitzpatrick's father, Russell. "Matt looked like he was going to lose a ball, left, on 17 on Friday and Russell Henley saw it land and sprinted about 60 yards to the spot in the jungle rough where it went and told everybody to come and start looking for it.

"They found it in three and a half minutes [five minutes is the limit]. I can't speak highly enough of the players. They couldn't be nicer as they are doing it for a living and Matt's just doing it for pleasure."

Fitzpatrick plans to spend the next few days relaxing at home, although he has the English Amateur Championship coming up in 10 days' time and says that the best thing he learned from all the professionals this week was how to plot your way around a golf course.

He has had access to Pete Cowan for coaching advice at home, moreover, and it was that link which provided him with his caddie for the week, Lorne Duncan, who has more than 30 years' experience on the European Tour.

"I couldn't have done it without him," added the Silver Medal winner, who said that he thought the members at the Hallamshire club would be very proud of him. "But I know I'm a bit more popular because they managed to move the TV from the spike bar to the lounge this week, which has been a bit of an issue for a while."