By Steve Scott, golf correspondent

BREAKING A knuckle on a pinkie finger climbing out of a hot-tub hardly ranks amongst sport’s more heroic injuries, but for Kevin McAlpine it proved the unlikely spark which ended with his crushing victory in the final of the Allied Surveyors Scottish Amateur Championship at Nairn on Saturday.

The bizarre injury, sustained in the last few weeks of his studies at Colorado State University, ironically gave the son of Dundee United legend Hamish McAlpine renewed purpose both physically and mentally and the result was outstanding form all week on the Moray Firth coast culminating in the 8 and 7 hammering of Colville Park’s Paul O’Hara.

The 22-year-old used another of his fast starts to overwhelm the narrow favourite O’Hara almost as soon as the 36-hole final had begun.

And it all stemmed from the oddest of injuries, which occurred only a couple of months before the Alyth player finished his liberal arts and criminology degree.

“I tumbled getting out of a hot-tub and broke the knuckle on my pinkie finger, and I was perfectly sober!” he said.

“I thought that was me for the rest of the season, but we didn’t have a particularly strong golf team at Colorado State so I just switched to a two-finger overlap grip and played the last three events of the season through the pain.

“It wasn’t great and I was just slapping the ball, really, but it gave me a feeling that there are other things than golf.”

Surprisingly, when the knuckle healed and he reverted to his normal grip, Kevin found his best form, possibly even better than when he claimed the course record 62 at the Old Course in qualifying for the 2004 Amateur Championship, had returned.

“I’d had a rough couple of years after the 62 when I wasn’t playing anything like I thought I could, and that was a hard time,” he said.

“You’re hitting balls five days a week trying to find what’s wrong and all you’re practising is your faults.

“However, after the injury and a bit of tweaking on my swing from the assistant at Alyth, Mike Rae, when I came back from the US, I really felt I was playing well.

“I suppose I came in here under the radar a bit and my section of the draw was a good one for me, but I always felt my game was good enough to win,” he said.

McAlpine tore up the first few holes of the West Links in every match bar one, and Saturday’s final was no exception to the general rule.

Despite a tricky wind, he hit every green in regulation for the first 14 holes and holed out superbly, completing the first nine holes in 31 for an immediate six-up lead on a shell-shocked O’Hara.

From there the final was more even but O’Hara’s brilliance on the greens all week had largely deserted him and it wasn’t until the 26th hole of the final that the 19-year-old brother of tour player and former champion Steven O’Hara got one back, and that only to reduce the deficit to nine-down with 11 to play.

Three holes later McAlpine, watched by his proud father and a large contingent from Alyth, clinched the title with a short par putt.

“I didn’t start well, but to be honest Kev was so good that I don’t think anyone would have stayed with him in the morning,” said O’Hara, who lost the 2004 final to George Murray.

“I’m not as disappointed as I was two years ago because I don’t think I had much of a chance out there today when he got going.”

McAlpine now aims for at least one more season in the amateurs, now certain of international recognition with Scotland, and aiming for Walker Cup consideration next year.

“The 62 at St Andrews proved to me that I was good enough to play at the top level, and when this sinks in a bit I’ll take even greater encouragement,” he said.

“It’s brilliant that my Dad and a lot of the guys from Alyth were up here suppporting me today and I especially have to thank Steve Cochrane for caddying for me for the last eight rounds.

“Obviously it means a lot to win the title where Colin Montgomerie won his Scottish Amateur as he’s the best player to come out of Scotland, and to follow in just one of his footsteps is a great honour.

“Hopefully I can follow in a few more footsteps in time but I’ll take it one step at a time.”