A strong contingent of 56 Scottish players will arrive in East Lothian next week in search of the first home Amateur Championship victory since Stuart Wilson won at St Andrews in 2004. 

The highest-ranked of the 56 is Banchory’s James Byrne, who reached the 2009 Amateur Championship last 16 at Formby. Byrne, currently in his junior year at Arizona State University, occupies 18^th place in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, his highest position to date. He was selected to represent Europe in the Bonallack Trophy this year.

 

Also selected was Ross Kellett of Colville Park Golf Club in Motherwell. Kellett’s Amateur Championship record is one better than Byrne’s, the 22-year-old having reached the quarter-finals of Royal Lytham and St Annes in 2007, before losing out to fellow Scot and Challenge Tour player Callum Macaulay 4&3.

 

"I feel pretty comfortable around Muirfield,” said Kellett, who finished runner-up at both the New South Wales Amateur and Argentina Amateur last year. “I played in the Home Internationals there in 2008, and a Scottish Golf Union team plays against a members’ select team every season as well. That experience can only help during the Amateur.

 

“My match play record is good, but the first priority is coming through qualifying. Missing my last two cuts is disappointing [the Scottish Stroke Play Championship and the St Andrews Links Trophy], but I feel I've been playing well enough, I've just not been getting any breaks. You need a bit of luck in golf at times.

 

“Hopefully I'll be ready at the Amateur. There's a lot at stake that week, what with the chance of playing in The Open and the Masters if you win. But you have to forget all of that and stay focused on the job," he added.

 

More successful at the Links Trophy was Troon Welbeck golfer Michael Stewart, who finished in a tie for seventh place seven shots off the lead, but only two off second place. Philip McLean, also due to contest the Amateur Championship, was the highest-placed Scot after four rounds at the Home of Golf, finishing tied for second place.

 

Former Scottish Boys Champion Stewart, who has won twice on the US College circuit playing for East Tennessee State University, said: “Muirfield is up there with my favourite courses and I won a Scottish Golf Union Junior Tour event at North Berwick back in 2006, so I have quite good memories of East Lothian.”

"I missed the cut in the Scottish Stroke Play in my first event back since returning from the US but I wasn't my usual self that week. There was no flair, but my game is getting better and sharper now. It's all about peaking at the right time and the Amateur would be perfect time to do that.”

 

Local interest will focus on Craigielaw’s Mark Hillson, who was the highest-placed Scot at the 2009 Amateur Championship, progressing to the quarter-finals before being defeated by England’s Darren Renwick. 

The 115^th Amateur Championship will take place at Muirfield and North Berwick golf clubs on 14-19 June. 288 players will play two rounds of stroke play, one each at Muirfield and North Berwick, before 64 players and ties progress to the match play rounds beginning on Wednesday at Muirfield. A place at the 150^th Anniversary Open Championship and the 2011 Masters Tournament are on offer for the 2010 Champion.