Links give Matthew a home from home Open
Carnoustie member Matthew Southgate used to arrive at the links intent on killing his rival before a rowdy night on the beers with his mates to toast their success.
This week the standard will be different from the lawyers, plumbers and teachers he delighted in blowing away in an annual inter-club contest.
But the desire to give everything he’s got will be the same as the Englishman plays The Open at a place he’s belonged to since his mid-teens.
Despite home being 500 miles away in Southend, the Southgate family have been members of Carnoustie for the last 14 years. It is an association that stretches back to one boozy night when his dad competed in an amateur event there and woke up the next morning with a membership card in his pocket.
Matthew got one of his own when he turned 16 and was soon one of the first names on the teamsheet for the annual Lindsay Shield grudge match with St Andrews and Leven Thistle.
Southgate returns in a fine run of form as yesterday’s four-under 66 moved the 29-year-old into a decent spot to launch a final-day Scottish Open charge from nine under.
He said: “When I was a kid, 16 or 17, I would go up there, put a Carnoustie shirt on and go out to basically kill someone for a point!
“The atmosphere on that bus back from St Andrews – if you’d won a point – was brilliant. A few beers with the boys.
“It doesn’t matter if you are a postman or the top lawyer in the world – as soon as the clubs come out you’re all equal and it’s played in the right spirit. But they are pretty chuffed when I turn up. Some of the opponents have folded a couple of times when I’ve played, thinking, ‘Oh, I wasn’t expecting to play you’. “It’s a lovely bit of history for me and my family, the association with Carnoustie, so I’ve been looking forward to playing an Open there ever since I got that membership at 16 “I reckon half the town will turn out to cheer me on. “It’s just as well I seem to have found a bit of form.”