Frilford Heath’s Tom Fleming was in sparkling form as he won the South Region’s qualifying round for the Powerade PGA Assistants’ Championship.

The 27-year-old, from Abingdon, fired a five-under-par 65 at Royal Ascot and restated his aim of reaching European Tour standard.

Fleming pocketed £500 and now leads 17 other qualifiers from Ascot to the 54-hole championship in August at The London Club, near Brands Hatch in Kent.

“I’m not kidding myself (about the difficulty of playing the European Tour)”, admitted Fleming.

“But now that I’m almost through my PGA three-year course, I’d like to give it a go.

“I tried last year, and missed getting through Stage 1 by a shot at The Oxfordshire.”

An impressive six birdies at Ascot – “my only dropped shot was a silly one” – came as a result of some fine tee shots and iron play.

He missed only two greens in regulation, and but for an out-of-sorts putter he reckoned the score could have been four or five better.

But Fleming was rightly chuffed by one particular effort.

Stuck in a greenside bunker, up against the lip and on a downslope at the long 15th, he somehow contrived to splash out to less than three feet for the fifth of his six birdies.