It’s not over till it’s over

The British Amateur Championship was recently won by Laird Shepherd at Nairn Golf Club in Scotland. He beat Monty Scowsill in the match-play final that went on for 38 holes.

Shepherd, a graduate of Stirling University and a resident of St Andrews, can now look forward to the perks of the win, that includes a slot at next week’s 149th British Open at Royal St George’s, the 2022 Masters at Augusta, and the 2022 US Open at the Country Club in Brookline, near Boston.

The story should end here but when you delve into the match, you’ll find that Scowsill was eight up standing on the 18th tee of the first 18 holes.

Shepherd then won the 18th with a par to go into lunch seven down but perhaps having now won his first hole of the match felt that all was not yet lost.

After the first nine holes of the afternoon round, he reduced the lead to four with nine holes to play and all of a sudden it was “game on.”

After pars were shared on the 13th and 14th holes, Scowsill finally looked as if he must have done enough — four up with four holes to play.

Under the pressure of knowing any mistakes would probably be deadly, such an advantage would surely prove too big a mountain for Shepherd to climb.

The unbelievable then happened. A combination of good play from Shepherd and badly timed mistakes from Scowsill saw the match amazingly end all square in regulation play.

At this point, there was only going to be one winner and indeed that proved to be the case. A shell-shocked Scowsill three putted the second extra hole to hand Shepherd the victory after he had already parred the hole.

Out of Bounds: After his win, Shepherd said: “Honestly, at lunch I thought this was over. I was just trying to avoid total embarrassment. I can’t believe this really but to come back like this is completely surreal.”