Calum Hill reveals sunshine plans after £150k title win and why Scottish celebration will have to wait

Calum Hill reckons his ecstatic family members will have to wait until mid-May to celebrate him landing a second DP World Tour title triumph back on Scottish soil. “I won’t be home until after Turkey - I am staying in the sunshine until then,” said the newly-crowned Joburg Open champion with a smile.

The 30-year-old was speaking to The Scotsman on Sunday night from Johannesburg airport before boarding a flight to Dubai, where he is basing himself for this week before heading east for next week’s Porsche Singapore Classic.

Hill will then tee up in the Hero Indian Open the following week before heading to the United States - his wife, Miranda, is an American - for a two-week break. After that, he will travel east again for a double-header in China before planning to practice in Turkey for a week before the return of the Turkish Open.

Calum Hill roars ‘come on’ after holing a birdie putt on the 18th green in the fimal round the Joburg Open at Houghton Golf Club in Johannesburg | Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

“I’ll head home to Scotland after that and, by that time, fingers crossed it is semi warm,” he added, laughing, of having become accustomed to playing in good weather ever since he crossed the Atlantic to play his college golf at Western New Mexico University.

During his time there, the Kirkcaldy-born player set a new record for all-time scoring and, in the process, earned hearty praise from his head coach. “Calum was the total package as a student athlete,” said Kent Beatty at the end of Hill’s stint, which also included a spell as assistant golf coach.

They say winning becomes a habit and that has certainly been the case for the man who cut his golfing teeth at Muckhart and is now attached to Gleneagles Hotel, close to the family home in Crook of Devon. He won both the San Juan Open and Arizona Open in 2017 before racking up three title triumphs on the Challenge Tour in less than a year in 2018 and 2019.

After then landing a breakthrough win on the DP World Tour in the 2021 Cazoo Classic at the London Club in Kent, Hill missed most of the 2022 campaign due to a niggling illness but, after carding a brilliant 62 at Houghton Golf Club on Sunday then coming out on a top in a three-man play-off, he is back in the winner’s circle.

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“I can’t remember how the first DP World Tour win came about, to be honest, but this one was definitely a bit more unexpected,” he admitted of coming from eight shots back heading into the final round to become the first Scot to win an event that is co-sanctioned with the Sunshine Tour.

“I knew a good round would put me somewhere up near the top of the leaderboard, but when we got the 15 green, where there was a scoreboard, and I birdied it to move into a tie for the lead, I thought ‘oh, I might have a sniff here if I can have a solid finish’.

“I then hit my first putt on 16 a little bit long and saw the second one lip out as it broke the opposite way I thought it would due to mis-reading it. I thought that maybe it was gone for me after that, but then I managed to birdie the last. I got lucky, I guess. But, no, it is really good and I am delighted.”

Calum Hill shows off the Joburg Open trophy along with his wife Miranda after landing a dramatic second DP World Tour title triumph on Sunday | Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

As anyone who knows Hill, who had fellow Scot Mike Thomson on his bag, would tell you, it was somewhat out of the ordinary to hear him roar “come on” as he celebrated a closing birdie putt. “I knew I needed a birdie on the last two holes to give myself a chance,” he said of that reaction. “At that point, the way the scoring was going, having seen that Shaun [Norris, the overnight leader] had made a double at some point, just to get that on 18 when I needed it was fantastic.”

The £150,000 win, which saw Hill jump from 286th to 160th in the Official World Golf Ranking, came on the back of three successive missed cuts after he’d started his 2025 calendar campaign with a promising top-20 finish in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic in January.

“My game has been feeling good, but I had been playing poorly,” he admitted. “Yeah, I had a really poor week in RAK (Ras Al Khaimah) then two poor weeks back-to-back after that. But the golf wasn’t terrible. It was just down to awful scoring. I just got no momentum going and had some really bad putting.

“I also started this week with a poor putting round. I think I was last in the putting stats. I was negative four-and-a-half strokes then in the final round I holed everything I looked at. It’s a funny game isn’t it? It comes and goes. But my game has been feeling good, so it would have been nice just to get a result, never mind a win, from what I have been feeling.”

Hill, who is leaning towards signing an equipment contract with Titleist after deciding to see what club options were available to him at the end of last season, has also jumped from 95th to 11th in the Race to Dubai Rankings and, of course, his sights are set on trying to emulate Bob MacIntyre, his Bounce Sport stablemate, by securing one of the ten PGA Tour cards that are up for grabs once again on the DP World Tour.

Calum Hill hits his second shoton the 18th hole during the first play-off hole at Houghton Golf Club on Sunday | Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

“That is definitely the main goal for this year,” he declared and, bearing in mind his wife is American and he, too, has spent a lot of time in the US over the past decade or so, that should come as no surprise whatsoever. “It will take a lot of consistently good golf but getting myself into the top 15 in the Race to Dubai this early on is a nice position to be in. Every time you play well from now on, you are just kind of improving your ranking instead of chasing it from the middle of the pack.

“It’s a fantastic position to be in this early on in the season. It puts you in a good spot and the aim now is to push on from here and give myself a good chance at one of those PGA Tour cards. It is definitely a big spur, which is great.”

As for proud parents Debbie and Neil having to put the champagne on ice for a while back in Kinross-shire, Hill admitted with a smile: “I am sure they will be trying to get out to watch me somewhere now!”