Golf: Barry Hume closes in on amateur title

BRADLEY Neil, the title favourite, and three other seeds are still standing but they should all be wary of Barry Hume heading into penultimate day of the Fairstone Scottish Amateur Championship at Downfield.
By MARTIN DEMPSTER AT DOWNFIELD
Published 1st Aug 2014, 02:16 BST
Thirteen years after winning the SGUs flagship event at the same venue, Hume is closing in on the title once again. Picture: APThirteen years after winning the SGUs flagship event at the same venue, Hume is closing in on the title once again. Picture: AP
Thirteen years after winning the SGUs flagship event at the same venue, Hume is closing in on the title once again. Picture: AP

Thirteen years after winning the Scottish Golf Union’s flagship event at the same venue, the 32-year-old Glaswegian is closing in on the title once again after beating Connor Syme, a semi-finalist in the Amateur Championship in June, to book a spot in the last eight. “I dug into the archives and pulled out a performance as that was my best display so far,” declared Hume, who was five-under-par for the holes played in beating the Dumfries & County teenager 4 and 3.

A decade ago, Hume was the man in Neil’s shoes as the Haggs Castle player found himself being tipped as Scottish golf’s next big thing. After turning professional, he played twice in The Open Championship but was unable to make ends meet in the paid ranks and returned to the amateur game. He now runs a company that offers football scholarships in America and that has been “keeping me busy” in between rounds in Dundee. “I don’t know a lot of the lads I’ve come up against – and they probably don’t know me either,” he said. “I knew Connor was a good player, though.”