FORGET hill starts, three-point turns and parallel parking, the simple, straightforward 300-metre drive into Augusta National up Mag- nolia Lane probably gave Bradley Neil more jitters than the driving test he passed a few months ago.

"You get so excited when you arrive and I drove up Magnolia Lane and tried to just soak it all up," said Neil, of his short but memorable road trip along one of golf's most famous entrance routes during a recent reconnaissance mission. "The first day was very hard as I was trying to get over the fact that I was doing everything at Augusta. My caddie Phil [McKenna] was just as excited as me and we wanted to get that excitement over with early on so we could focus on our jobs."

Some 10 months after he won the Amateur Championship at Royal Portrush, the long wait is almost over for Neil. Georgia has been on his mind for a long time now since he won the unpaid game's most cherished prize last June and received the traditional invitation to the opening Major of the season. So far it has been everything the 19-year-old thought it would be.

"The staff welcomed us and treated us really well and they could understand what I was feeling," said the former Scottish Boys' champion from Blairgowrie, of his first visit to this celebrated golfing corner of the USA. "For anyone who gets the chance to go there it's massive. I'm 19 years old and a golf enthusiast. To finally achieve one of my dreams to go and play there was incredible. It's something I will never forget and I was fortunate to have a really, really close friend there in Phil."

From gazing at pictures of shimmering Augusta on TV as a wide-eyed youngster to actually treading the manicured turf and trying to re-create some of the spell-binding shots he watched, Neil is now living the dream. "I've got really early memories of Mike Weir winning his play-off [in 2003]," recalled Neil. "We were in Blackpool on a family holiday and I remember being in the hotel room watching it on a tiny TV with my brother, Connor. I also think of 2005 when Tiger chipped in on the 16th. Me being me, when I got to Augusta and played it, I went for a shot at it myself ... but was much less successful. You get all the Masters official films from different years and I've watched them all in the hope one day I'd get the chance to go there."

Driven and determined, Neil, who also played in last year's Open and has a US Open to look forward to this season, is relishing the challenge Augusta National will pose. Along with Stephen Gallacher and former Masters champion Sandy Lyle, he is one of three Scots in a stellar field that also includes six other amateurs from around the globe. Peter McEvoy, the former GB&I Walker Cup skipper, was the last British amateur to play all four rounds of the Masters in 1978, but Neil is aiming high.

"It is the leading amateurs competing, they have got there from winning championships and if you can make the cut and come out on top, it's a great feeling," he said. "My aim is to try to win the amateur medal and if I was to achieve that it would be a great start to the year."

With plenty of Scottish players offering advice, Neil has been grateful for the pearls of wisdom, while the inside track of Augusta's nooks and crannies from Craig Connelly, the Glasgow caddie who has seen and done it at the top level of the global game, has been stored in the memory bank.

An offer of nine holes in the build-up with a certain Rory McIlroy will be something to savour too as the world No 1 prepares his assault on the career Grand Slam. "Imagine it, getting to play with Rory in the week when he could make history," said Neil, who is also set for a hit about with former US Open champion Justin Rose. "We had a good chat in the breakfast room and he kindly said we could have nine holes together, on the Monday or Tuesday."

It's shaping up to be quite a week for the teenager.