Scottish golf has something to shout about amid surge in success and top 100 breakthrough

For the first time in what seems like forever, Scotland has two players inside the top 100 in the men’s Official World Golf Ranking.

Having broken into the game’s elite for the first time in September 2019, Bob MacIntyre, who is currently ranked 19th in the global standings, has now been joined by in-form Sandy Scott.

On the back of recording successive wins on the KornFerry Tour, the PGA Tour’s feeder circuit, Scott jumped 40 spots to 87th in the updated rankings on Monday.

It’s something to shout about, for sure, and even more so when you take into account MacIntyre is an Oban man and Scott hails from Inverness and has been a proud Nairn member throughout his golfing career.

Sandy Scott has had lots to smile about lately after landing back-to-back wins on the Korn Ferry Tour and securing his 2027 PGA Tour card | Dylan Buell/Getty Images

The welcome boost for Scottish golf has come at a time when players flying the Saltire have been doing themselves and their country proud across various tours.

Scott Jamieson, of course, became a DP World Tour winner again, bridging a 14-year gap, when he won the Nexo Championship at Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire in August. A few weeks earlier, Rory Franssen landed his maiden victory on the HotelPlanner Tour in Estonia.

Last week was a very good one, indeed, for Scottish golfers. Scott, who had already secured his PGA Tour card for next year, won a play–off in the Compliance Solutions Championship in Oklahoma, setting up a chance to be crowned as the Korn Ferry Tour No 1 this weekend.

A few hours earlier on this side of the Atlantic, Michael Stewart, playing on a sponsor’s invite, produced an incredible performance in just his fifth DP World Tour start by finishing joint-fourth in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews.

At the same time over in Ireland, Graeme Robertson and Gavin Hay, two PGA in Scotland professionals, were helping a Great Britain & Ireland side captained by David Scott win the PGA Cup for the first time since 2017 at The K Club.

It’s all been terrific to see especially when you consider that in many of the cases we are witnessing players who are starting to fulfil potential that has been there for a long time.

Take Stewart, for example. As a teenager, the Ayrshireman was the Scottish player who looked destined to go all the way to the top of the ladder after winning the Scottish Boys Championship in 2009 then the Scottish Amateur Championship the following year.

After playing in the 2011 Walker Cup at Royal Aberdeen, he was signed by Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler at a time when the Englishman also managed Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke among others.

Fifteen years on, Stewart, who has always worked his socks off but sometimes felt he was battering his head off a brick wall, has finally delivered a big performance on the professional stage and, at 36, there’s still time for him to achieve his dream of becoming a DP World Tour card holder.

Having been hampered by a wrist injury, Scott had had to wait until 28 to make his presence felt in the paid ranks, having had a similar pedigree as Stewart as an amateur.

Having reached the final of the South African Amateur Championship in 2022 - Stewart landed that title in 2011 - Franssen was another player who always looked as though he could make headway as a professional, as he is now doing, while Robertson is just a brilliant story.

At a time when he was one of the country’s top amateurs, Robertson stepped away from the game after becoming a dad, working as a sales person in the building trade to guarantee a wage.

Michael Stewart, who turned professional in 2011, has had to wait patiently to produce the biggest performance of his career | Warren Little/Getty images

Deciding he needed to get rid of an itch and see what he could achieve in the game, Robertson took it up again, turned professional at the age of 33 five years ago and, as evidenced by him being GB&I’s top performer with five wins out of five in The PGA, is now playing the best golf of his life.

Niall Shiels Donegan and Connor Graham, both members of Great Britain & Ireland’s winning Walker Cup team under Dean Robertson at Lahinch last month, are the two up-and-coming stars in Scottish amateur golf at the moment, sitting 18th and 27th respectively in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

Here’s hoping that they hit the ground running when they make that switch to the paid ranks at the end of respective college careers at North Carolina and Texas Tech. Be warned, though, that it can be a long, hard road for even the most talented players out there and the likes of Stewart and Scott will gladly testify to that.