Scottish golfer on course to qualify for 153rd Open through Amateur Series

The Royal Burgess player got off to a flying start in The Open Amateur Series by winning the St Andrews Links Trophy earlier this month before then failing to make the match-play stage in The R&A Amateur Championship.

Despite that disappointment, Adam still topped the standings heading into the third and final event in the battle for a coveted spot in this year’s Claret Jug event at Royal Portrush.

American Ethan Fang, his closest challenge in the points table after being crowned as the Amateur champion at Royal St George’s, wasn’t in the European Amateur Championship line up at Vasatorps while England’s Harley Smith, who started the event in third, retired after the opening round.

It was mission accomplished for Adam in terms of his first goal of making the cut this week as he opened with rounds of 75-70 before jumping 14 spots up the leaderboard to sit joint-seventh on the back of a third-day 71.

On level par, Adam sits just three shots off the lead, shared by three players, in Sweden as he bids to become the first Scot to lift the title since Stephen Gallacher in 1994.

Though not yet cut and dried, the Stephen Gallacher Foundation ambassador is in a strong position to become the second successive Scot to win the series after Calum Scott got into last year’s Open at Royal Troon, where the Nairn man picked up the Silver Medal as the leading amateur.

Elsewhere, Australian Nadene Gole birdied the last at Eyemouth to pip American Kathy Hartwiger at the end of a nip-and-tuck final-round battle in the Scottish Senior Women’s Open. Stirling’s Alison Davidson and V C Thomas (The R&A) shared third spot in the 54-hole event.