Tom Lewis completed an English raid of this year’s top two Scottish amateur titles, with an outstanding final round on the Old Course to capture the St Andrews Links Trophy.
“My dad always thought that I would one day win this event as an amateur because he thinks the Old Course really suits my game and shape of shot, so that was a pretty solid prediction in the end.”
Lewis will stay amateur to play in the Walker Cup at Royal Aberdeen if selected, although that would appear a formality if he remains fit, and is also targeting a place in the Open at Sandwich, where he won the British Boys’ title in 2009.
Maclean, the fifth-generation descendant of a Scottish sea captain who settled in Peru, had fought his way to the front of the field with a 67 in the third round but was overhauled by Lewis’s front nine in the final round.
His challenge finally came to grief at the 17th, where his approach to the green was too big, landed on the road and bounced over the wall out of bounds, leading to a double-bogey six. First round leader Enoch put together two solid rounds at one-under on the final day which was well behind Lewis’ pace while Huizing, the co-leader at half-way with teenage Argentinian Franco Romero, shot a final round 70 birdieing the last for a share of second.
Romero suffered a bogey on 15 and a double bogey on 16 in the final round to take him out of contention. Fifers James White, Brian Soutar and Greg Paterson tied as top Scots, 10 shots off Lewis in a tie for 11th place,
Scott Gibson (18), of Southerness, who played his first round on the Old Course in Thursday’s practice round, was having an outstanding tournament until he suffered a triple-bogey seven on the 16th in his final round.
Completed scores:279 T Lewis (Welwyn Garden City) 68 74 70 67 283 S Maclean (Bolivia) 71 71 67 74, R Enoch (Truro) 66 74 71 72, D Huizing (Netherlands) 71 68 74 70284 D Geminiani (Italy) 73 72 70 69285 A Sullivan (Nuneaton) 74 69 72 70, B Campbell (New Zealand) 69 71 73 72, F Romero (Argentina) 67 72 75 71286 R Kind (Netherlands) 73 71 75 67287 C Hinton (Oxfordshire) 72 73 70 72, E Espana (France) 70 73 71 73288 C Bouniol (France) 71 74 70 73289 B Soutar (Leven GS) 73 73 71 72, S Hodgson (Sunningdale) 73 73 74 69, V Flatau (Sweden) 71 75 72 71, J White (Lundin) 72 73 70 74, D Nisbet (Australia) 73 71 72 73, G Paterson (St Andrews New) 73 71 73 72290 G Stal (France) 71 73 71 75, M Steiger (Australia) 71 73 72 74, S Gibson (Southerness) 71 71 72 76291 D Boshart (Netherlands) 73 73 73 72, M Carnes (USA) 71 75 73 72, P Shields (Kirkhill) 71 74 74 72, A Levy (France) 74 70 74 73292 T Adcock (The Nevill) 71 75 73 73, H Leon (Chile) 73 73 71 75, P Cutler (Portstewart) 73 72 76 71, T Hatton (Harleyford) 73 71 75 73, B Westgate (Trevose) 73 70 74 75293 B Drewitt (Australia) 73 73 74 73, R M Gouveia (Portugall 70 74 77 72295 L Motta (Italy) 73 71 76 75, L Ehlers (South Africa) 74 70 73 78, J F Valdes (Argentina) 73 70 76 76297 J Hurst (Pleasington) 72 71 75 73298 D Wasteney (Bondhay) 73 72 74 79 299 J Findlay (Fraserburgh) 72 73 78 76300 S Stuart (St Annes Old Links) 71 75 76 78.
A week after compatriot Andy Sullivan won the Scottish Open title at Blairgowrie, Lewis took the top-ranked amateur strokeplay in European golf as a final round five-under 67 swept away the field in the late evening rain.
It brought a handsome four-stroke victory with an eight-under aggregate of 279 ahead of Bolivia’s Sebastian Maclean, Wales’ Rhys Enoch and Dutchman Daan Huizing.
It was a brilliant final round by the 20-year-old from Welwyn Garden City, whose dad Bryan played junior golf with the Hertfordshire town’s most famous golfing son, Sir Nick Faldo.
He came from three shots back to wipe out some bitter memories of his time on the inward half of the Old Course going back to last year.
“I was in the lead with seven to play last year and really mucked up the 12th, finding one of those bunkers you can’t see off the tee, and eventually finishing third,” he said.
“Yesterday I bogeyed the 16th, 17th and 18th, three-putting them all, and this morning I bogeyed the 16th and doubled the 17th, so although I knew I was in the lead this afternoon I wasn’t looking forward to the final stretch at all.”
Unknown to Lewis, his run of five birdies in six holes from the long fifth had taken him clear in the lead.
An error in on-course scoring meant he had a shot more of an advantage over Maclean when he reached the 16th tee than he thought he had.
“In retrospect it was good that the score was wrong because I might have relaxed or held back a bit when I still needed to focus for those holes, and I made a nice chip at the 16th to get par there,” he said.
“I hit into the Road Bunker at the 17th but that was the only trap I found all week, and a bogey turned out to be okay there.”
In 2010 Lewis was England’s top-ranked player, had a second place among the professionals in the New South Wales Open last December, and then made the cut to win the Silver medal at the Dubai Desert Classic earlier this year.
“I’d had a pretty slow start to this season and was waiting to get started but this is obviously a great win,” he said.
Continued with scores…