The Charlestown touring professional won the International Qualifying Final for the British Open by three shots after carding two rounds of 70 to finish 140, four under par.

Ashley Hall, Nick Cullen and Peter Senior all finished tied for second on one under and were forced into a play-off for the final two Open berths.

Hall and Cullen were eventually successful.

For Townsend it was the realisation of a dream which he narrowly missed in 2010 when he finished fourth at Kingston Heath, only two strokes behind third place.

‘‘I’m very, very happy,’’ Townsend said. ‘‘You know I’ve played this qualifier so many times and I’ve come very close.

‘‘I think when it was a four-spot I kept running fifth. And then it was a three-spotter, I’d run fourth. So I’m pretty happy to be where I am now.’’

The Open is in mid-July at Royal Lytham & St Annes in Lancashire, England, and will be the biggest moment of the 30-year-old’s career.

‘‘I’ll just approach it like I would any other tournament,’’ he said. ‘‘I know it will be a big tournament, but I’ll just try to get myself as organised as I can, and hopefully I might be able to play some events beforehand.’’

Townsend was one shot behind Victorian Chris Gaunt and Sydney’s Neven Basic going into the final round of the 36-hole event. Play was delayed for three hours as hail hit the sand-belt course.

When Townsend finally teed off he was untroubled by the blustery conditions and rain.

The former NSW Open and NSW PGA Championship winner produced a faultless front nine which included birdies on the fourth, seventh and ninth.

‘‘It couldn’t have gone much better than that in difficult conditions,’’ he said. ‘‘It was extremely windy. We had wind gusts of up to 90kilometres before we actually went on.

‘‘‘I tried to keep it controlled and out of the wind.’’

Bogeys on the 10th, 12th and 15th opened the door for Cullen.

They were locked at three under on the 17th, but Townsend birdied the par four with a long-range putt, and his South Australian rival finished with two bogeys to give the Novocastrian a comfortable victory.

Muswellbrook’s Kurt Barnes could not qualify for a hat-trick of Opens after a disappointing three-over 75 yesterday left him one over in sixth place. Four bogeys in the opening six holes destroyed Barnes’s chances.

Charlestown’s James Nitties finished 12th on 146 (72-74), two over, and 18-year-old amateur Jake Higginbottom was well off the pace at 153 (74-79).