The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Syme finishes first Open
Young Fifer shoots 73 on day to remember at Royal Birkdale
He was announced on the first tee with a mispronunciation of his name.
However, none of the spectators cheering him off the 18th were getting it wrong when he finished his first round in an Open with back-to-back birdies.
In between, he appeared on the leaderboard tied for sixth.
All told, Connor Syme (not Sim) had an afternoon at Royal Birkdale he will never forget, and he won’t be holding a grudge when he meets starter David Lancaster for his morning tee time today.
“The announcer actually asked me beforehand about how to pronounce it and then must have just totally forgotten,” said the 22-year-old.
“But that happens a lot to me. I’ve had Sim before, maybe worse! “That’s quite common. “I woke up about 6am, went back to sleep for a bit, then got up around halfseven. I surprisingly slept a little better than I thought I would.
“I tuned in to watch some of the guys going off.
“My caddy also came up to watch the early ones teeing off to get an insight into what was happening on the first.
“I definitely felt the nerves a bit on the first tee, though. I felt nervous walking around and then you get to the tee and you think, ‘this is what you practise for’.
“It was class, the entrance I got to go on there.
“And then I hit a good shot and made a good par and that settled me down quite a lot.”
It was indeed a good par and it was an even better one on the second, with a 15-foot putt sunk for his four.
Holes three and four were put behind him with little drama and, when he birdied the fifth, no doubt the friends and family down from Fife were taking pictures of the leaderboard with Syme’s name on it.
There was no shame in the world number seven amateur dropping a shot at the 499-yard into-the-wind brute of a par four sixth to fall back to level, and there appeared no threat of his round unravelling on the back of it.
Indeed, the four subsequent pars that followed probably deserved to yield at least one birdie.
By this point playing partners John Daly and Adam Bland were a collective 11 shots worse off than the youngest member of the three-ball and, hands tucked in his pockets between shots, Syme was a picture of control and confidence.
However, links golf can turn on you in an instant.
After another beautiful middle-of-the fairway drive down 11, Syme made his first big mistake, blocking his mid-iron to the right and into an unplayable lie.
Following a penalty drop and a chip that didn’t make the green, a doublebogey six was a good result.