Exclusive: Scott Jamieson reflects on a year on tour

by Jim Black

THERE was no hint of frustration or tension in Scott Jamieson’s voice when he was reflecting on his season ahead of this week’s Hong Kong Open.

Had there been it would have been wholly understandable, for the 31-year-old Glaswegian is entitled to feel that he should have had more out of his game.

Jamieson has made 19 cuts from 28 starts on the European Tour and yet has slipped to 106th in the Race to Dubai: his poorest showing for five years.

“It’s been disappointing,” he said, “But, ultimately, golf is a results-driven game and the highs haven’t been as high as they were in my first three or four years on tour.

“I’ve made a lot of cuts, probably more than I have ever done, but I’ve not been able to play as well as I’ve done in the past when I had a raft of top-10s.”

In his first full season on tour, in 2011, Jamieson was 59th on the money-list, culminating in a share of 54th place at the DP World Tour Championship.

The following year he had climbed to 53rd and achieved a joint 14th place finish in Dubai. There was further improvement 12 months later in the form of 31st spot in the Race to Dubai and equal 26th in the season-ending event.

But his attempt to qualify for a fourth consecutive year was stymied by a drop to 76th after a best-placed finish of tied third in Russia, one of only four top-10s.

Having graduated to the main circuit from the Challenge Tour in 2010, Jamieson took three years to secure his maiden European Tour title, beating Steve Webster and Eduardo de la Riva in a play-off to win the inaugural Nelson Mandela Championship.

Keen to continue to progress his career, Jamieson attempted to make several changes to his game last year in an effort to become a better player.

“With hindsight that was a mistake,” he confessed. “The changes didn’t quite work out as I had hoped and I found that I wasn’t able to do certain things under pressure, in the way I had done in my first few years on tour.

“So I’ve tried to go back to what I was doing then and it’s been a very consistent year from the point of view that my current stroke average of 71.42 is second only to 2012 when it was 71.27.

“Golf is driven so much by momentum so you just have to keep the head down and keep on believing in what you are doing and hopefully once you get a bit of momentum going it can be a whirlwind from there.”

After just three missed cuts in 15 starts, Jamieson’s momentum was halted over a period of 17 days between the end of June and mid-July. He reflected: “I missed the cut by four shots in the BMW International Open in Germany and by one at the French Open.

“But failing by a single shot in the Scottish Open, when I was so desperate to play well on home soil, was the low point of my season and the biggest disappointment.

“If you make the cut alone in France and Scotland that’s another 50,000 Euros at least, so I would have had a lot more money on the board if I had been a total of two shots better and the rest of the season would have been lot easier.”

Despite being only 15,935 Euros (£11,664) ahead of 110th place in the Race to Dubai, Jamieson, who has managed to remain injury-free, insisted: “I don’t feel a need to press a panic button, not at all.

“I always try to look forward as opposed to glancing over my shoulder to see who is directly behind me. In this game it can all change in the flick of a switch.

“I like to think I am a fairly positive individual. Most times you have a knee-jerk reaction to results, but once you’ve had five minutes away from it, it’s easier to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.”

*This article was originally published in TGP on 21 October

Tagged European Tour, Race to Dubai, Scott Jamieson