Burns delighted to join Scotland’s greats on famous trophy
GEORGE BURNS is probably still gazing in wonder at the Scottish Amateur Championship trophy as we speak. “The names on that trophy are pretty amazing and it’s pretty cool to have my one alongside them,” said the 22-year-old from Glasgow, who edged out Kirkhill’s Lewis Irvine at the 19th hole to lift the national title at Crail on Saturday.
Originally a Williamwood man, Burns relocated to Fife and took up membership at the course which was hosting last week’s domestic showpiece about 10 months ago. They’ll be buying him drinks in the clubhouse for years after he became the first host club player to win the Scottish crown since Jim Milligan beat Andrew Coltart in the 1988 final in his own backyard of Barassie.
Burns can now look forward to a place in the Scotland team for the upcoming Home Internationals at Lahinch and his success was a rich reward for the work he has put in.
In this fickle game, those rewards don’t always come along.
“It feels like some justification for the long hours of practice I’ve put in and the frustration I’ve gone through over the last couple of years,” he said. “It’s crazy, awesome.”
Burns was a former team-mate of Scotland’s current man of the moment Robert MacIntyre in the under-16 ranks back in their junior days.
MacIntyre, who finished sixth in The Open last month and has had two runners-up finishes on the European Tour this season, won the Scottish Amateur title himself in 2015 and Burns is delighted to have followed in those footsteps.
“Bob actually beat me on the way to his win at Muirfield in 2015,” recalled Burns. “I didn’t know that I was the first winner from a host club since 1988, so that’s a nice surprise.”
On the European Challenge Tour, meanwhile, Calum Hill missed out on his second win of the season at the Vierumaki Finnish Challenge.
The Kinross golfer, who won the Euram Bank Open last month, was still in with a chance of nabbing the title playing the last but slipped to a bogey on the final hole when he needed a birdie to tie the lead.
Hill’s 70 for a 12-under tally left him two behind eventual winner, Jose Filipe Lima, but the Scot took another step towards promotion.