Duncan Stewart is coming home with genuine belief that he can turn his superb form into a local hero victory in the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge at Aviemore.
Already with a Challenge Tour win under his belt and another strong finish just last week in the Najeti Open in France, the 32-year-old is playing the best golf of his life and is fifth on the junior circuit’s Road to Oman rankings, set fair for a full European Tour card.
He can get that immediately by winning another twice this year, and where better to win than at MacDonald Hotels’ Spey Valley, just a few miles from his home in Grantown-on-Spey, hopefully to get a lift into next month’s Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open.
“It’s going to be different, being back as a winner,” he said. “I said after Madrid that the goal was to try to get to three wins before the Scottish Open to get into that – I’ve got two weeks now so I’d better pull my finger out.
“I can’t wait to be back at the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge. I’ve got family all around there and I’m going to stay at home – I’ll have my son there with me too, it will only be his second event after Turkey, so hopefully he’s a good luck charm.”
Stewart didn’t even have a full ranking to play the Challenge Tour this year, but his success this year is the perfect example to the other 26 Scots in the field – ranking from former Tour players like Peter Whiteford and George Murray to promising amateurs like Connor Syme and Grant Forrest.
“It’s looking good, it’s promising,” he said. “We’re in a good place in Scotland, we all just need to keep chasing that and try to give the crowd something to cheer about this week – it’s been a disappointing couple of years there for myself so I need to try to make up for it.”
The 250,000 euro event generally gets an elite field from the Challenge Tour and two recent winners have gone on to great things – Brook Koepka (2013) is now in the world’s top 15 and Andrew “Beef” Johnson (2014) has established himself as a winner this season.
The Scottish contingent includes a number looking to fight their way on the Challenge Tour, like former amateur world team champions Callum Macaulay and Wallace Booth, and former Amateur finalist Michael Stewart.
Three of the current amateur crop are playing in Syme, Forrest and fresh from his narrow loss in the Amateur final last week, Robert MacIntyre. A fourth, Ewen Ferguson, has been forced to withdraw with a wrist injury.
