American exile Martin Laird has two “home” tournaments in the next two weeks which should establish him as the only Scot in the world’s top 100 and he intends to take the chance, starting with the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond this week.
Glaswegian by birth, Laird grew up only 20 minutes away from the Loch Lomond course, which qualifies it as his home event, and when back from his base in Arizona he lives with his parents in their home in Upper Largo which makes next week’s Open at St Andrews a home-town championship as well.
Laird lies 116th in the world rankings and a finish like last year’s tenth place in the Scottish Open would push him close to getting into the top 100 and providing at least one player from the home of the game in that company but his dreams go a little further than righting that present wrong.
“To win the Open at St Andrews would be the absolute ultimate for me, and I’m sure for a lot of guys, not just Scots, it is as well,” said Laird, who came through the international qualifying event in the US to claim his St Andrews place.
“Just playing at the Old Course in the Open is as good as it gets for me, and this is like a dream two weeks because, outside of an St Andrews Open, playing at Loch Lomond in the Scottish Open is as good as it gets, too.
“Last year was probably the most fun I’ve had in a golf tournament; friends and family coming out to watch and support me. There’s very few places in America I’ll hear people directly cheering for me, and it’s a huge lift.
“I remember playing here Sunday last year, struggling a bit and coming up the 8th to hear people shouting ‘Come on, Martin, keep it up’.”
As for next week, Laird acclimatised to links by playing a round at Lundin with his dad “the bounciest golf course I’ve ever seen” and then scouting the Old Course with the help of a veteran caddie who has been working the old track for 34 years.
“It was a big help. He was telling me and my regular caddie the best lines and where the flags would be in an Open, but there was a problem with the new 17th tee,” said Laird.
“I asked him where the line was and he said ‘I’ve actually never been on this tee before’, but a couple of balls over the sheds and we had the line, and of course he had a few tips about how to come into the green.”
Laird has himself played the Old Course five times before, but four of those were 12 years ago in a schools event although, like players of every generation, he has daydreamed about a curling 10-footer on the 18th green to win an Open there.
“I’m sure a few putts I’ve hit at one time or another I was imagining was to win the Open at St Andrews. I watched as a kid hoping that I would have a chance, and because it’s only every five years you have to try to take advantage.”
Being a success in the United States, where he won the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas last year the first Scot to win in a tour event on American soil since Sandy Lyle and consolidating that with some strong performances this year make him unlike most Scottish professionals.
However the stats do not agree, as they have him 12th in greens in regulation and 150th in putting the same story as many of his European Tour contemporaries.
“I don’t think there is a bad Scottish putting gene, but as a kid I never worked on putting from October to around June because the greens at my club at Milngavie were just not good enough during those months,” he said.
“There were months when I would go to the range, hit balls and never practise putting, so maybe that’s got something to do with me, and maybe the other guys are the same.
“Now where I am in Arizona it’s the same all year round and pretty much perfect for practice, but I kind of lost confidence from the West Coast swing in the States where the greens tend to be not as good.”