BRADLEY Neil, the newly-crowned British Amateur champion from Blairgowrie, has predicted his painful introduction to major championship golf at Royal Liverpool will serve him well in the future.
Neil teed off in the first round of the Open alongside Mikko Ilonen of Finland and Matteo Manassero of Italy yesterday morning with hopes high that he could fare well. However, the 18-year-old quickly discovered just how demanding the very highest level of golf can be; he carded four bogeys and a double bogey in a traumatic outward half and reached the turn in 41.
During that harrowing run, the youngster had to contend with a misguided security guard picking up his ball - despite the fact that it was clearly still in play - and the embarrassment of putting off a green and into a bunker.
"At the second, I hit my ball a few yards from the fence and a security guard picked it up," he said. "I was gobsmacked. I thought at first it was maybe because it was OB. But then I realised if he had picked it up it must have been okay.
"The security guard thought he had done the right thing. But he was told off for picking the ball up and put it back where it had been. There was no penalty. Then at the fifth I putted into a bunker which was not a lot of fun. The line was quite tough. I was at the front of the green and there was quite a lot of slope. I had to take it on. But I didn't catch the putt, didn't hit it hard enough, and it took the wrong break and went into the bunker.
"I don't know if I've ever putted into a bunker. All I could do at the time was laugh. I might have had a different reaction if nobody had been there."
The Scotland internationalist, who performed above his tender years to land the Amateur Championship at Royal Portrush last month, deserves great credit for his exemplary conduct throughout his round of 79. Neil is mature enough to realise the experience will, hard as it was for him to bear at the time, prove hugely beneficial to his development in due course. "It was just tough," he said. "You are playing on one of the biggest stages and there is nowhere to hide. This is the first time I have been in the spotlight like this and it has been a learning curve. I will take a lot from it and move on.
"Inside I was tearing myself apart. But on the outside I had to be so careful. I could have made myself look bad to an awful lot of people if I had let what I was doing get to me. But I just take positives from it. It is a day to endure."
Neil enjoyed playing alongside Manassero and Ilonen, two former British Amateur champions, and was impressed with how they played on their way to respective rounds of 67 and 70. "Watching Matteo and Mikko on the front nine was brilliant," he said. "The number of putts they holed was amazing. I consider myself a good putter, but the number of putts they holed was something else."
The teenager will have to produce the performance of his life today if he is to survive the halfway cut and challenge for the silver medal that is awarded to the leading amateur who plays all four rounds. Two of his compatriots, Stephen Gallacher and Marc Warren, harbour loftier ambitions than making it through to the weekend after opening with sub-par scores yesterday.
Gallacher, who briefly found himself on the top of the leaderboard after a run of three birdies from the fourth, is the leading Scottish competitor after shooting a two-under-par 70. "It was good fun," he said. "I enjoyed it. The wind got up on the back nine and made it far trickier. Any time you shoot under par in a major you know you are doing not bad.
"It is something to build on anyway. I am looking forward to playing in the second round. I didn't drive the ball too well in my first round so there is room for improvement there.
"My game plan was good and my course management was good. I just have to iron out a few errant tee shots and I am sure that I can do well."
Warren, who finished third in the Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen at the weekend, also started well in the calmer conditions and carded three birdies in the opening five holes. But he dropped back and finished with a 71. James McLeary (73) is handily placed, but Paul McKechnie (76), Paul Lawrie (79), Sandy Lyle (82) all have work to do.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article