Scottish teenager overcomes biggest nerves of career to give himself fighting chance at The Open
18-year-old Graham tees up chance to make the cut on his major debut
Connor Graham overcame feeling the “most nervous” he’d ever been to give himself a chance of making the cut on his major debut in The 153rd Open at Royal Portrush.
Playing in the same group as 2018 winner Francesco Molinari, the 18-year-old Blairgowrie amateur signed for a two-over-par 73 in challenging conditions in Northern Ireland.
“It was pretty good,” said Graham, who won The R&A Junior Open at Monifieth in 2022, of how his day had been. “I enjoyed it.”
The Scot created history two years ago at St Andrews as the youngest-ever Walker Cup player while he also played on a winning Junior Ryder Cup team in Rome later that year.
But he admitted of the challenge on the first tee on this occasion: “That was probably up there with the most nervous I've ever been and I was just glad to be able to be in play after the tee shot.”
Level par after 12 holes, he was wobbling a bit as shots were then dropped at the 13th, 15th and 16th, but a birdie at the 17th repaired some of that spillage.
“Yeah, it was nice,” he said of that timely boost. I made a few silly mistakes on that back nine but almost holed out on 17, hit the hole, had a tap-in birdie, which definitely felt nice.”
He’s out early in Friday’s second circuit and said: “Hopefully shoot a good number and try to move on to the weekend.”
Late in the day, Graham’s fellow amateur Cameron Adam, who was close to making a hole-in-one at the 13th, also signed for a 73 while HotelPlanner Tour professional Daniel Young had to settle for a 75 after dropping four shots late on in near darkness.
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