Ben Kinsley didn’t expect to be the last player carrying the hopes of St Andrews into the last 16 of the Scottish Boys Championship but the 15-year-old is happy to take on the mantle of trying to be the first in over 50 years to take the title at Dunbar.
The Madras College pupil had five birdies in his fifth-round victory over fellow Fifer Cameron Mitchell and now takes on Craig Oram from Nairn Dunbar in the quarter-finals, two matches away from being the first St Andrean since Lachlan Carver in 1960 to win the boys’ crown.
However, Kinlsey didn’t think he was the leading candidate from the crop of young talent coming out of the St Andrews Links Junior Golf Association this week on the East Lothian course and admitted some surprise to be the one left standing rather than his friends Scottish international Ewan Scott and Josh Jamieson.
“Ewan has been pretty awesome and Josh is a great player as well,” said the 15-year-old. “I guess we just have a pretty good crop of players coming through right now.
“I don’t know exactly why there hasn’t been many top players from the town in recent years, we have a lot of low-handicap players who play in all sorts of wind conditions.”
He added, “I’ve been playing well all week but I’m a bit surprised that I’m the last one of us left, so I’ll be doing my best to bring the title back to St Andrews.”
The early birdie on the first immediately put Kinsley ahead against Mitchell, the reigning Fife boys champion, and three more followed on the front nine as he built an unassailable lead, eventually winning 6 and 5.
“Conditions were a little easier today and scoring was easier, and even though I made a couple of bogeys out there I’ve been playing better as the week has gone on,” he said.
Only one seed has survived until the quarter-finals Dumfries and County’s Liam Johnston, who had a moment of controversy during his match with Charleton’s Andrew Davidson when he noticed his opponent’s distance-measuring device on his power caddie was on.
The rules are that they can’t be used in play, and many players who use the caddies which incorporate such devices tape them up to ensure there is no ambiguity, but Johnston admitted later he regretted even bringing up the matter.Champion beaten”I don’t think that Andrew even realised it was on, and he was pretty upset,” he said. “If anything it affected me more because I was two up and lost the next two to go back to level.”
The match with the four-handicapper went to the 18th where Johnston scraped through, surprised to find himself the only seed left.
Defending champion Grant Forrest was well beaten in the fourth round by Kirkhill’s Craig Ross, who was then beaten by surprise package Connor Marsland.
Marsland hadn’t played Scottish seaside golf until last month and didn’t have the most auspicious of starts.
Playing in an inter-collegiate event at the Fairmont St Andrews, the Lincolnshire County junior champion shot rounds of 90 and 99 before realising he needed to control his ball flight a little better and this week at Dunbar has been an unexpected success.
Marsland has had to forgo defending his county title because he found he could play in the Scottish boys as a result of his grandmother Joan, who hails from Kirkintilloch.
“She took up golf at the same time I did because she wanted to drive me to games and events and it was her who discovered I was eligible,” he said.
“Now I’d be proud to represent Scotland if I was asked and I’d been keen to play up here because it’s a better and far harder form of golf than the parkland stuff we play back home.”
The other hot favourite Jack McDonald lost out in the fourth round and his conqueror, Dumfries baker’s son Greig Marchbank, went though to the quarter-final where he will meet Callum Hill.