Sam Locke Wins Silver Medal

Winner of the silver medal at the 2018 Open at Carnoustie, get to know Sam Locke the 19-year-old Scottish amateur

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Sam Locke Wins Silver Medal – Carnoustie Open 2018

There were five Scots in the field playing at the 2018 Open Championship and the youngest, most inexperienced of them all, Sam Locke, was the only one to make the cut.

Locke, who shot rounds of 72, 73, 70 and 78 to finish at +9 at Carnoustie.

He follows the likes of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Jose Maria Olazabal as a winner of the Silver Medal.

Related: Past Open Championship Silver Medal Winners

He looks to have a very bright future ahead of him, but who is the 19-year-old amateur?

Currently a member at Banchory Golf Club, Locke is the Scottish Amateur champion and also works part-time at the Paul Lawrie Golf Centre Coffee Shop.

To qualify for this year’s Open Championship he shot 69, 66 in the final qualifier at the Renaissance Club in East Lothian, and can count Paul Lawrie as a personal mentor.

No doubt the 1999 Open Champion has given the young Scot plenty of tips and tricks to use on the tough links of Carnoustie.

Lawrie said: “He’s a great lad, a joy to work with, he works hard and works in the coffee shop to earn enough money to play.

“Stuff like that I absolutely love; you’ve got to learn that money doesn’t grow on trees. He’s certainly got that in abundance. When he has success it’s really cool for the foundation to see someone coming through it and kicking on and getting a game at the Open, it’s amazing.

“You’ll spend an hour chatting to him about something and he’ll go away and work on it for the next couple of days and he’s overdone it sometimes – that’s what you want. But it’s all about Sam, it’s not about what I’ve done. We just help him a little bit along his way.”

Sam Locke with his father who is his caddie for the Open week (Getty Images)

Locke’s father also plays a significant role in his golf, coaching him from when he first started to play the game and acting as his caddy for this week at The Open.
Locke said; “My dad’s on the bag this week. He’s my coach as well. So it was quite nice for him, nice for me, I think, to let him do it and just a cool experience, obviously, father and son doing it”. 
His playing partners for both days were American Brandt Snedeker and Australian Cameron Davis.
When asked how they got on Locke said; “We got along great. Obviously, whoever I play with this week I’m going to learn a lot from them. So, no, I think you’ve got, as an amateur, do the best you can, but also soak up as much as you can from the whole experience. And obviously, just learning from the way the other guys deal with it because they’ve been and done it for years. Yeah, it was good fun.”
Locke shot a 36-hole +3 and had a nervous wait to see if he would make the cut, but the tricky conditions meant that with a couple hours of play left the mark moved to his number and didn’t move back.
“I felt I had to dig quite deep to get some of it back. Nice birdies there on 13, 14, and 15. When I felt I didn’t really hit it good at all off the tee. So it was quite a tall ask to do that, so I was pretty pleased with myself to be honest. Poor finish again, but hopefully we’ll just sneak in by one. We’ll see”
Locke was right. He did make it by one.
When asked about the Silver Medal he said ” I don’t know how other amateurs are getting on. But hopefully, I’m here for the next two days and just keep doing the best I can.”
Well as he was the only amateur to make the cut it was huge congratulations to Sam Locke as he will be there at the prize giving on Sunday evening, alongside whoever wins the Claret Jug.

The Golf Monthly team are at Carnoustie all week so check out the Golf Monthly website and the social media channels for all the latest.