Exclusive:Hannah Darling joins Ewen Ferguson and Connor Syme in Modest! Golf stable

Hannah Darling will be making her professional debut in this week’s ISPS HANDA Women’s Scottish Open as a new Modest! Golf Management stablemate of Ewen Ferguson and Connor Syme.

Darling, who has been handed a sponsor’s invitation for the event at Dundonald Links, has been signed by Niall Horan’s company after being widely regarded as having real potential as a professional.

Hannah Darling's last amateur outing was for Scotland in the recent European Women's Team Championship in France | Scottish Golf

The Broomieknowe player won the Scottish Girls’ Championship back-to-back in 2017 and 2018, when she also landed the inaugural staging of The R&A Girls’ Under-16s Championship.

Darling shone as well during a four-year spell at the University of South Carolina, where, highlighted by a win in the ANNIKA Intercollegiate, she signed off as one of the most decorated players in the programme’s history.

She represented Great Britain & Ireland three times in the Curtis Cup, including a memorable win with Catriona Matthew as her captain in last year’s contest at Sunningdale.

Darling, who is making the switch sitting 16th - the second-highest British or Irish player after top-rated Lottie Woad - in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, has secured sponsorship from Vision Scotland, Novellus and Arnold Clark through Modest! Golf.

“It’s awesome to be with those guys,” said the 21-year-old. “They’ve done a lot of great work for me already by putting all the sponsors in place and everything has been seamless so far.”

‘A lot of nice opportunities coming up’

Darling will be joining Scottish No 1 Gemma Darling, as well as Kelsey MacDonald, Kylie Henry and Lorna McClymont in flying the Saltire in this week’s $2 million event, which has world No 1 Nelly Korda as the star attraction as the American makes her debut in it.

“There’s a lot of nice opportunities coming up and it starts this week at the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open, which is pretty cool,” said Darling, “It’s nice to see the best of the best are playing and it is exciting to be making my debut against the best players in the game. I feel like this moment has been coming for a long time and now that it has been announced just adds to the excitement.

“My time in America has been brilliant and it has taught me all of the things I needed to learn before embarking on this next stage. I’ve had great team-mates and great coaches there with me on my journey so far and it has all prepared me for this moment. It has put me in the right place going forward.”

Hannah Darling helped Great Britain & Ireland win the Curtis Cup at Sunningdale last year | The R&A

Woad is also making her professional debut on the Ayrshire coast after signing off her amateur career on a high by winning the KPMG Women’s Irish Open by six shots at Carton House earlier this month then coming close to landing a major in The Evian Championship in France the following week.

“Obviously Lottie is incredible,” observed Darling of her 2024 Curtis Cup team-mate and also her room-mate at the recent Vagliano Trophy in the Netherlands, “but the really cool thing for me is that I feel she is not far away from where I’m at. She does a lot of things really well but, at the same time, she doesn’t do other things any better than I do and that’s nice to see. It makes me feel confident about the next step.”

After her exciting debut, Darling will play some events on the LET Access Series before turning her attention to the LPGA Q-School, though she also plans to have a crack at the LET equivalent later in the year.