Birdie and baby boost for Calum Hill in Genesis Scottish Open

Calum Hill holed one of the longest putts of the day in the Genesis Scottish Open to walk off The Renaissance Club course with a smile as wide as the Firth of Forth.

His mood was then made even better as he strode across to the recorder’s area cradling his 12-week-old son Josh and with wife Miranda at his side after they’d finally arrived from the US earlier in the day.

Calum Hill in action during day one of the Genesis Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club | Getty Images

Hill had mixed four birdies with two bogeys over his opening 11 holes at the Dirleton venue and was still two under for the day with two holes to play in a group that contained 2023 Open champion Brian Harman.

The two-time DP World Tour winner then rolled in a 42-foot birdie putt across the green at the par-3 17th before getting up and down at the last to card a three-under-par 67.

“Yeah, I played nice and it was a good day,” admitted Hill. “I did everything well bar from off the tee. I hit a poor tee shot down eight and that kind of threw off my tee balls after that as I was struggling a little bit to get it in play. But my iron play was really good and so was my putting.”

As evidenced by that bonus at the penultimate hole on the Tom Doak-designed course. “I actually said to Stuart (Davidson, his caddie) ‘this is brutal’,” admitted Hill, smiling.

“I thought it was really tough just to two-putt. But my pace had been good all day. I had a 32-footer that went in on nine and other chances I had on the front nine were there or thereabouts.”

Hill, who has his sights set on one of the three spots up for grab in The Open at Royal Birkdale next week, confirmed that the course here is playing tougher than it ever has.

“There’s enough rough out there now to be annoying after it being a bit thinner the last few years,” he reported. “I had a couple of lies out there where I couldn’t even think about advancing it to the green, which was a bit of a pain.”

It was a lovely sight as Hill walked across the car park in front of the clubhouse with wee Josh in his arms. “Yeah, it is nice to see them,” he admitted, smiling. “They landed this morning, and it’s nice to see Josh as it’s been about three weeks since I saw him.”