Scots who learned their trade in US succeed where Americans failed in Amateur Championship at Muirfield

Published on Wednesday 16 June 2010 21:23

ON A day that saw the Americans suffer a wipeout at the Amateur Championship, how ironic that the three Scots left standing at the last-32 stage at Muirfield are players who have spent productive time at colleges in the United States.

From the group of ten that qualified for the match-play stage, James Byrne, Michael Stewart and Jordan Findlay are all that's remaining of the home contingent, though they all have sound enough credentials to go all the way and become the first Scot to lift this title since Stuart Wilson at St Andrews in 2004.

Byrne, the top Scot in the world rankings, swept into the third round with an impressive bogey-free performance in beating Tiago Rodrigues, a young Portuguese player with a tidy short game, by 5 and 4 on another glorious day in East Lothian.

"I said to my caddie, Richard Lamb, that my strategy was to have no bogeys and that was the key," said the 21-year-old from Banchory, who moved up a gear after an eagle-3 at the long fifth, where he holed from 30 feet, and kept his momentum going thanks to a great recovery from thick rough at the tenth. Byrne, who lost in the last 16 at Formby 12 months ago before producing a blistering run of form that saw him lift the Tennant Cup and East of Scotland Open – he also came within a whisker of qualifying for The Open – has spent the past three years at Arizona State University and points to the recent NCAA Championship, played over the Honors Course in Chattanooga, as a good indication of the standard of golf he now enjoys on a regular basis.

"The course was 7,400 yards, the rough was think and it was wet – a lot tougher than this week," added Byrne, who won a long-driving contest with a blow of 325 yards early on in his spell in Phoenix and reckons he's added about 20 yards in distance off the tee since he left Scotland. "I shot one-over for three rounds and finished 41st – over here I'd have been in the top ten."

Byrne, who has been coached by Inchmarlo's Andrew Locke since he was ten but is also benefiting from some mentoring from Dean Robertson, is aiming to turn professional after next year's Walker Cup at Royal Aberdeen and admits he is thinking seriously about taking a leaf out of Martin Laird's book by staying on in America. "That's still to be decided but I'm leaning towards the Martin Laird way through the Nationwide Tour, which seems much stronger than the Challenge Tour in Europe," he said.

Stewart, the 2008 Scottish Boys' champion from Troon Welbeck, was at East Tennessee State for two years but isn't going back after the summer, having decided that he's gained enough from the experience and now needs to be back in Scotland to give himself the best possible chance of making that Great Britain & Ireland team.

"I loved it over there but felt that I had secured sufficient experience of golf and life," said the 20-year-old. "My big goal now before I turn professional is to make the Walker Cup team – I want to play in an event of that stature and experience having a home crowd behind me."

After plotting his way around the magnificent Open Championship venue the previous day, Stewart took off the handcuffs yesterday and bagged five birdies in sweeping aside Germany's Philipp Westermann by 5 and 4. "I was able to play my usual attacking golf and played so much better," he said.

Findlay, a 22-year-old former British Boys' champion from Fraserburgh, also had a spell at East Tennessee State, sharing two of his years there with Rhys Enoch, the player he meets in the third round, and the other two with Rhys Davies, who is making a strong challenge for a Ryder Cup debut on Welsh soil later in the year.

After holing his 9-iron second shot from 145 yards in winning an all-Scottish clash against Lundin's James White, Findlay, originally fifth reserve for the event, revealed how close he'd come to suffering a serious injury in a car crash as he headed down from the north-east to Largs to see Bob Torrance, his coach of nearly four years.

"I used to travel up and down in one day, leaving Fraserburgh at 4.30am," he said, "That was just stupid and one day I crashed my car into a pole in Dundee. The car was written off and I was very lucky to escape with a couple of scratches.

"Since then, I go down to Largs for a week, staying in a bed & breakfast close to Bob's house."

Enoch, a Great Britain & Ireland squad member, beat Peterhead's Philip McLean, who rallied with back-to-back birdies at the 15th and 16th but bowed out after being unable to make another one at the 17th, where he found the same spot at the 17th where Gary Evans famously lost a ball in the 2002 Open.

The other MacLean in the field is still standing, though. Sebastian, the 20-year-old from Bolivia who is an eighth generation descendent of a Scot, recovered from "an impossible" position in a greenside bunker at the penultimate hole as he beat Kiwi Ben Campbell.