From distraught to delighted. Golf has a habit of toying with the emotions and Ewen Ferguson, the 19-year-old from Bearsden who was given a late call-up to the Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team yesterday, has been through the wringer over the last few days.
Originally named as the first reserve for the match with the USA at Lytham next week, Ferguson was brought into Nigel Edwards’s 10-man side after Englishman, Sam Horsfield, withdrew for ‘personal reasons’.
With the addition of Ferguson to a tartan army that also includes Jack McDonald and Grant Forrest, Scotland now has its highest representation in the biennial battle since Stuart Wilson, David Inglis and Graham Gordon flew the saltire in the winning GB&I side at Ganton in 2003.
“I got two calls the other week,” reflected Ferguson, who won twice on the domestic scene in April and helped Scotland win the European Team Championships in July. “One was saying I wasn’t in and I was distraught. I was actually getting a flight back from the US Amateur Championship at the time so it was a fairly depressing journey home. Then I got another call last Friday saying I was in and I was buzzing. The Walker Cup has been my goal since I went up to Royal Aberdeen in 2011 to watch it there.”
Keeping the news to himself until the official announcement was made left Ferguson as tight-lipped as a Trappist monk sooking a straw. “It was really hard,” he added. “After I found out I was in, I got back to practising but there were people coming up to me at the club saying ‘I’m so sorry you didn’t make it’. I was dying to say to them ‘you'll never believe it but I'm actually in' but I couldn't say anything until it became official. The only people who knew were my mum, dad and brother. I think my dad and brother found it as hard as I did to keep it quiet.”
Ferguson is now looking to make a big noise in the Walker Cup. He has represented GB&I at boys level in the Jacques Leglise Trophy while his victories in both the Scottish and British Boys’ Championships underline his qualities in the matchplay format.
“This will be the pinnacle of my career so far,” said Ferguson, who is the highest-ranked Scot on the world amateur order at No 40. “I don’t think I could have gone to watch the Walker Cup to be honest. I would’ve been heartbroken watching it and not being a part of it.”
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