IN a curious way being the last amateur in The Open Championship field for the weekend was the ideal early test of Sam Locke’s professionalism.
Knowing he had already achieved his main goal for the week when he made the cut on Friday while his Chinese, Danish and South African rivals were beaten by the Carnoustie links, the teenager from Stonehaven had every right to take the view that it did not matter what he did because he had earned the right to freewheel.
One of those supported by the foundation set up by former Open champion Paul Lawrie, it was never likely he would do so, however.
“Although I’ve made the cut and got the silver medal, I want to try to get as far up that leaderboard as I can and I don’t want to just say, ‘oh, that’s it, I’ve got it now’,” he said of his mindset as his third round got underway. “The tournament still has two rounds to go and, only nine shots back, it felt like I could push up a bit and you’re trying to finish the best you can, obviously, so, yeah, I guess it took the pressure off a little bit, but I still wanted to do really well. It didn’t really make a massive difference for me.”
The silver medal is a special prize and harder than ever to win because players turn professional so quickly. Yet he found himself in the company of another of the select band to have done so, Tom Lewis who won it in 2011. It was Lewis who had more reason to be grateful for the pairing though, as they fed off the support generated by galleries who knew they were also watching the lone Scot left in this year’s field.
“It was great to play with Sam today. The crowds were all on his side and were very friendly with me,” said the Englishman.
Locke was clearly pleasantly surprised by the way the Carnoustie galleries got behind him, just as they had when his mentor had made his life- transforming trip down Scotland’s east coast 11 months after he was born.
“There was a lot of them. I didn’t think there would be that many people coming, so it was really nice to have that much support. It’s the first time I’ve obviously had a lot of people watching, but, yeah, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it,” said the 19-year-old.
It looked that way as he and Lewis responded by giving them plenty to shout about from the off, Locke birdieing three of the first four, chipping in for the last in that sequence, while Lewis filled in the blank by birdieing the second and matched his playing partner’s three at the next.
Even after dragging his drive out-of-bounds at the sixth, the 19-year-old showed maturity in calmly registering what would have been a birdie four with his second ball to minimise the damage and while there was a second bogey at the ninth, he had put the first of a brace of twos on his card at the short eighth to reach the turn in 34.
The second of his twos, at the 13th, was sandwiched by bogeys and he took as many shots to negotiate the 16th as he had at the previous two par threes, but he finished stylishly, birdieing the last for a 70 to complete his first sub-par round.
As Lewis could advise him, having started his professional career explosively later in 2011 when he claimed a win on the European Tour at the Portugal Masters, winning the silver medal is no guarantee of enduring riches since the 27-year-old has missed five cuts and failed to claim a top-10 finish in nine European Tour starts this season.
For now, though, Locke can draw enormous satisfaction from joining a list that includes the likes of Tiger Woods, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy, and seeing further evidence that he could be capable of regularly competing with them in years to come.
“It’s obviously a good feeling to know that I’m in that company.
Yeah, it’s nice, but I’ve just got to keep kicking on and working hard and try to push up that leaderboard tomorrow,” he said.
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