Two prime Midlands prospects enter the Scottish Boys’ Championships at Dunbar this week, each with a real chance to end long home droughts but there’s no rush or pressure on either.
Ewan Scott and Bradley Neil already have the credentials to be among the best teenage players in Scotland but such are their tender years that they both have two more attempts to end unacceptably lengthy waits for their home areas and claim the blue riband of junior golf before age catches up with them.
Scott and Neil are the last two winners of the Reid Trophy, the English under-14 championship generally regarded as the top event in that age group in Europe and both have captained Scotland at under-16 level already.
Scott is patently the best prospect to come out of St Andrews for decades and is certainly the best candidate to claim a national title since James Bunch won the strokeplay boys’ title in 1993.
The wait for a Scottish boys’ winner from the Home of Golf is even longer, stretching to half a century since Lachlan Carver won at North Berwick in 1960.
Neil, meanwhile, seeks to be the first Perth and Kinross player to win the boys’ title since Ben Collier in 1990. During that time despite the many outstanding players developed by the big county there hasn’t even been a finalist from the area.
Scott and Neil are in action today in the top half of the draw at a Dunbar course that has had a remarkable recovery from storm damage sustained towards the end of last year.
Plus one-handicapper Ewan, who reached the fifth round last year at West Kilbride before going out to Jack McDonald another of this week’s favourites is the lead player in the second quarter and opens with a match against Glenn Fotheringham of Falkirk Tryst, while Bradley, in the eighth seeded slot (even though there are no official seedings in the event) takes on Andrew Whyte, from the New Club, St Andrews.
Scott has started the season strongly with a dominating four-shot victory in the first of the SGU’s Junior Tour events at Arbroath at the end of last month.
Top seed is defending champion Grant Forrest, from the Cragielaw club in nearby Aberlady, and who is attempting to become only the fourth player to successfully defend the title and the first since Scott Henry in 2004 and 2005.
The field’s back-marker at plus three is Scottish junior internationalist Daniel Hendry, who is the other “seed” in Scott’s quarter of the draw. Hendry, who is based in Dubai, originally hails from Stirling and is a member of the Emirates Club, the host venue for the Dubai Desert Classic on the European Tour.
Of all the 255 entrants most interest will focus on Craig Lawrie, the 15-year-old son of 1999 Open champion Paul, who is making his debut in the event.
Playing off four and out of the Deeside club in Aberdeen, Craig’s opening opponent is Renfrew’s Lewis Kerr, another four-handicapper.