Golf is much more than a game in Scotland: it is a way of life. For over six hundred years Scotsmen have chased a little white ball around rugged stretches of coastline, the date easily verifiable as King James II tried to ban golf in Scotland by an Act of Parliament in 1457. 

He would have been as well trying to ban breathing! The game flourished and, by the nineteenth century, it was Scotland that produced the undisputed early masters of the sport; men like Willie Park Senior, Old and Young Tom Morris and Willie Fernie.

And we're still producing champion players today.

Born in Glasgow in 1963 Colin Montgomerie is unarguably the greatest Scottish golfer of the modern era, and generally regarded as the best golfer never to have won a major.

Internationally known as a Scotsman, Montgomerie was actually raised in Yorkshire where his father was managing director of a Biscuits manufacturer. He was also a keen amateur golfer who was later to become secretary at Royal Troon – one of Scotland's most famous links courses – and, thankfully, it was a passion for golf rather than biscuits that James Montgomerie was to pass on to his son.

Montgomerie won several titles as an amateur – including the Scottish Amateur Championship – as well as representing his country in the Walker Cup, before turning professional in 1988 at the age of 25. He made a splash immediately – being named Rookie of the Year – and within two years was making his Ryder Cup debut in the infamous 'War on the Shore' on Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Europe narrowly lost to the US amid heated scenes of fevered patriotism from American fans and players whose country was embroiled in the first Gulf War, but Monty made his mark and set in motion an unrivalled Ryder Cup record: he has never lost a singles match.

After that there was no stopping Monty as he developed into the most brilliant, consistent golfer Europe has ever seen, winning the European Order of Merit (the prize awarded to the top player on the European money list every year) seven times in a row from 1993 until 1999: a record unlikely to be equalled. (Just for good measure Monty was to win it again for an eighth time in 2005, amassing a record breaking 20 million Euros in prize money in the process.)

The only blight on an otherwise remarkable career is the fact that Montgomerie has never won one of golf's four major championships, finishing in second place on no fewer than five occasions – the most runner-up finishes for any player never to have won a major. Most agonising perhaps was his near miss at last year's US Open, where he holed a fifty foot putt on the seventeenth green to take the lead and, after a good drive, found himself standing in the middle of the eighteenth fairway with his favourite seven iron in his hands, needing only to make a par to win the championship. His easy, loping swing failed him, however, and his ball fell short and right of the green. A chip and a shocking three-putts later and Monty's dreams of a major were dashed yet again.

Another great Scottish golfer who has never quite thrust himself into the limelight with the eagerness of many other less talented players is Paul Lawrie, the quiet man from Aberdeen who won the Open in 1999.

Lawrie was born in 1969 and turned pro in 1986 at the tender age of seventeen. His initial ambitions extended no further than perhaps becoming a club pro – giving lessons and running the golf shop. However, when he won the first pro event he entered (the Moray Seafoods Open at Buckpool) he began to have other ideas.

It took Lawrie another six years to qualify for the European Tour – finally becoming a member in 1992 – and it would be another four years before he won the 1996 Catalonian Open. Ten years between turning pro and claiming his first victory: evidence of the tenacity that would see him go onto much greater things.

The final round of the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie will long be remembered as the day Frenchman Jean Van de Velde threw away a three shot lead on the final hole, forcing himself into a playoff with Lawrie and the American golfer Justin Leonard.

What is easily forgotten is that Lawrie had to shoot a career-best 68 over a very challenging Carnoustie to make it into the playoff. Then, at the fourth extra hole, Leonard and Van de Velde both hit mediocre drives. Lawrie smashed his straight up the middle and followed it up by hitting his second shot to four feet from the hole to make victory a certainty.

It was a shot that transformed Lawrie's life – making him the Open Champion and catapulting him into that year's Ryder Cup team and onto golf's A list. Since then Lawrie has worked steadily on the tour, rarely in the headlines but quietly amassing a very respectable record of 36 top ten finishes and five wins, including the prestigious Dunhill Links in 2001 and the 2002 Welsh Open. He was awarded the MBE for his services to British sport.

Another Scottish golfer who turned professional at a young age and who also went on to have a remarkable career is Largs – born Sam Torrance who turned pro in 1969 when he was just sixteen.

Almost thirty years later, at the age of forty-five, he capped an extraordinarily long playing career by winning the 1998 Peugeot Open in France, his twenty-first European tour victory: more wins than any other player bar Montgomerie.

Famously it was Torrance who holed the winning putt in the 1985 Ryder Cup at the Belfry – a putt which ended the American domination of the Ryder Cup and brought the trophy back to Europe for the first time in twenty-eight years. The photograph of Torrance taken seconds after his putt dropped – in his red sweater, arms extended in triumph and a look of sheer pride on his face – has become one of the most iconic images in golf.

It was not to be the end of Torrance's involvement with the legendary contest between Europe and America. Having competed as a Ryder Cup player eight times he was asked to be captain of the European team when the competition returned to British shores in 2002, to the Belfry where he had holed that sequence-breaking putt nearly two decades before.

Torrance was to prove one of the most popular – and effective – Ryder Cup captains in history when Europe inflicted a crushing, comprehensive defeat on America and he became the first European player to sink the winning putt and captain a winning team in different Ryder Cups; an achievement that was recognised the following year when he received an OBE to go with the MBE he received in 1995.

Yet despite all of this – despite the medals and awards, the multi-million pound fortune, the huge house at Wentworth – Torrance remains an extremely down-to-earth character. Known for his warmth, ready wit and approachability he is, for players and fans alike, one of the best-loved golfers of the modern era. And he isn't finished yet: Torrance joined the Seniors tour in 2003, going on to top the Senior Tour Order of Merit for two successive years in 2005 and 2006, a feat he never achieved on the regular tour!

If Torrance is part of Scotland's great golfing past (and, of course, its present!) then Richie Ramsay most certainly represents its future.

Around the same time that Torrance was holing his winning putt at the Belfry, the young Richie was taking his first swings with a toy plastic golf club. A little over twenty years later he claimed his own place in golfing history when he became the first Scotsman in over a century to win the US Amateur Championship.

Richie was born in 1983 in Aberdeen, where his father Iain is a lecturer at Robert Gordon University. However, it was Richie's late grandfather Roderick Robertson who introduced him to golf when he wasn't much more than a toddler. By the time he was 17 and a junior member at Royal Aberdeen Golf Club the young Richie was already winning the senior member's competitions!

Winning the US Amateur Championship, however, vaulted the young Aberdonian, and a Stirling University student into a whole new universe. At this year's Masters in Augusta Georgia he played with defending champion Phil Mickleson. And, as if this wasn't enough, June saw him teeing up next to Tiger Woods himself, when he partnered the world number one in the US Open. 'I just can't believe I am here at the moment!' Richie said. 'I'm just a guy from Aberdeen who loves playing golf!'

Keeping his feet firmly on the ground Richie has decided not to turn professional for another year, turning down potentially lucrative sponsorship deals and prize money so he can retain his amateur status and play alongside golf's greats in this year's majors.

Indeed 2007 is set to be a bumper year for Scottish golf. Muirfield, on the East coast hosts what promises to be a memorable British Seniors Open. Golfing legends Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros both turned 50 this year and are both now eligible for the event – a tantalising possibility.

Meanwhile, further along the coast, the Old Course at St. Andrews is hosting the Ladies British Open, where the best women golfers in the world will be teeing up for the first time at the 'home of golf.'

As if this wasn't enough, the oldest and most prestigious major in golf returned to Scotland in July, when the Open Championship came to Carnoustie again, won by Irishman Padraig Harrington after a replay with Sergio Garcia. Finally, the Barclays Scottish Open returned to Loch Lomond in July, attracting an outstanding field of players from around the world.

With Scotland boasting so many world-class tournaments we all hope that Scotland's golfers will continue to make their mark on the game at top level.

Here's hoping. . . .

Further Information:

Courtesy of Scottish Government - Scotland.org .

---

Recommend this article...