Bradley Neil suffered ignominious defeat in his only game of golf after a fashion since the Open Championship but got right back on track as he went into competitive action again at the Fairstone Scottish Amateur Championship.
The championship returns to the Downfield club in Dundee for the first time in 13 years this week and the 18-year-old Amateur champion, reasonably fresh from playing in the Open Championship, is the first seed and obvious favourite.
After his travails at Hoylake, however, which followed quickly on from his win at Royal Portrush, playing for Scotland in Finland and all the attendant media attention for his Amateur win, Bradley downed tools for a holiday with girlfriend Rosie Bailey and her family in Portugal.
“It was good to go on holiday, just nice to get away after the Open,” he said.
“We were in Portugal just outside Lisbon and I didn’t play any golf. Instead I just recharged the batteries.
“The only club I touched was playing crazy golf against my girlfriend’s mum, and I lost! She’s a bit of a wizard at it, but I was only third out of seven, which was a bit embarrassing.”
Returning to Scotland, it was back to the serious business with 27 holes over Downfield as a warm up, and yesterday’s opening round match against Ellis Hart from Dullatur, a late reserve entry into the championship, and he breezed through with two-under figures and five birdies to win 5 and 4.
“It’s tough coming back from the Open, one of the biggest sports stages in the world, but this is the top amateur event in Scotland and you want to do as well as you can,” he said.
“It was a good start, you just try and get past the first round and get your week going. I’ve a tough section of the draw, although anyone could say that. You just have to beat the player on the day. I made a few schoolboy mistakes today, but the longer I go in the week hopefully the rust will brush off.”
Oddly, this is only the second time Bradley has played in the Scottish Amateur, and he’s already matched his performance of last year, when he lost in the second round at his home club of Blairgowrie.
“It’s a little weird to be top seed when you think of it like that,” he said.
“Obviously it’s because I’m Amateur champion, but you look at the other guys in the field and what they have won. Alexander Culverwell is the defending champion, Grant Forrest won it in 2012 and was the winner of the St Andrews Links Trophy this year. There are a lot of good players.”
Next up for Bradley is Joseph Bryce, a 16-year-old from Bathgate who has just been included in the boys international squad for the first time.
Bradley certainly does not have an easy run through the championship, with the chance he could meet former Scottish international and 2005 champion Glenn Campbell in an unofficial Blair club championship on Thursday, the veteran seeing off Scotscraig’s Sandy Squires 3 and 2.
There’s also his successor as Scottish Boys’ matchplay champion Ewen Ferguson, who last week won the national Boys’ Strokeplay title to add to the matchplay and his British Boys’ Championship win last year the first player to all those titles simultaneously.
Bearsden’s Ferguson came through a tight first round tie against Rob Paterson (Kilspindie) 2 and 1 after being five-up through 10.
“I actually prefer stroke play, being on my own and making a score, but I don’t think I’ve lost in matchplay since the South Africa Test match in the spring,” he said.
“I’d like to play well this week, and try and emulate what I did last year by reaching the quarter-finals, or maybe going further.”
One potential threat was unexpectedly removed in the first quarter of the draw with first round defeat for Craigie Hill’s Scottish international Daniel Young, beaten on the 19th by Ryan Campbell.
Defending champion Culverwell had to wait until the last green to oust Myles Johnston, but another seed, Stirling University student Jack McDonald, breezed through 6 and 4 against Sam McNeil (Aboyne).
There was a decent start to the home club’s hopes of success to match Len Salariya’s feat of reaching the Scottish final at Downfield back in 1991, with Stewart Smith opening with a 3 and 2 win over Leven Thistle’s David Mitchell.
The man who beat Salariya in that final 23 years ago, Auchterarder’s Graham Lowson, lost his first round tie against John Duff.