Scotland’s Calum Hill has returned to the bitterly cold conditions of the snow-covered range at Gleneagles buoyed by his superb showing in the Saudi desert.
Hill, 26, sensationally secured his best finish in just 27 Tour starts, eagling the final hole to grab a share of fourth place at the Saudi International.
The Crook of Devon golfer was bumped out of third by American Tony Finau who birdied the last on the course laid out along the Red Sea.
It had been a bizarre week for the young Scot with his caddying brother, Ian returning home believing, and as 11th reserve on the weekend prior, his brother would not qualify.
Scotland’s Calum Hill returns home buoyed by best Tour finish of T4th in Saudi International. (Photo – @EuropeanTour)
But as the Saudi tournament got closer, Tuesday dawned with Hill first reserve and then when Dane Thorbjorn Olesen withdrew with injury Hill was into the event and with Hill grabbing Olesen’s legendary caddy Phil ‘Wobbly’ Morley.
‘Wobbly’, 55 began caddying in 1981 and boasts 41 wins with nine different golfers but none better than the 1991 Masters in calling the shots for Ian Woosnam.
The Yorkshire-born bagman also caddied in eight Ryder Cups between 1987 and 2010, including stints behind the scenes at the likes of Brookline in 1999 and Hazeltine in 2016.
And in holing his 23-foot eagle putt on the 72nd green in Saudi, Hill could not have been happier to have had the benefit, albeit for one event, of ‘Wobbly’.
Hill said: “I was so happy to see the putt drop that I can’t remember what ‘Wobbly’ said to me but it was something like ‘well played and good luck going forward’.
“He was great too as we’d come off back-to-back bogeys at 12 and 13 and he kept jabbing at me to focus and keep pushing on.
“Wobbly was great as I didn’t have one poor course management decision or bad call. He’s just so professional all the way through.
Calum Hill and Saudi stand-in caddy, ‘Wobbly’ Morbey (Photo – European Tour)
“He’s very good at accommodating the player. He meshed-in with my game very quickly and that was a big benefit just to be under the wing during the week and to see what it’s like.
“He is hugely experienced. He is very interesting and very good. It is very easy to see the success he’s had.”
Hill’s effort earned him a career high pay day of £114,000 to boost his main Tour career earnings in only 27 events to £402,387.
Hill is lying 18th on the Race to Dubai new season earnings and he picked-up 58 places to be the World No. 138th and the Home of Golf nations third top-ranked behind Robert MacIntyre (44th) and Martin Laird (86th).
And it’s Hill’s work with MacIntyre’s coach, Davy Burns he says that has turned around his game while Burns also works with Stevie Gallacher who went out and shot a equal career low 62 on day one in Saudi.
Hill said: “Davy’s made a big difference. There’s a lot of big changes going on and changes that continue to need to be made to allow myself to continue to improve.
“Already the time I’ve worked with him has had an impact. My misses now are not as detrimental as they had been and I’m not having too many very high scores in there as a consequence of that.
“They’re now manageable and Davy has definitely helped in that respect, which is pleasing.”
The only downturn now is that for the mainstream Tour players, such as Hill and fellow Scots Marc Warren, Stevie Gallacher and Richie Ramsay, there is no competition for a month to the March 11th to 14th Qatar Masters in Doha.
It will mean back to the snow-covered Gleneagles range, and a photograph taken of Hill and Tweeted on January 15th, that had followers of Hill shivering just looking at the snap.
Hill said: “Who knows when we will be back out again. Qatar is still on the menu at the moment, so it will hopefully be there.
“But I won’t mind the break as I always seem to do better when I’ve had a week off before an event to work on things.
“The great thing is that it’s just nice to play in big events like Saudi as the purses are so big. They are so much more inflated than the majority of the mainland European events. Just to get into Abu Dhabi and Saudi, and secure the last spot was huge, and then to make something of those opportunities has been good.
“I know Ian (brother – caddy) was disappointed to miss out on this but, at the same time, he will be happy for me to do well.”
Hill on what he did well in Saudi International
“Follow instructions. I also did a very good job of holing clutch putts this week. I missed a few short ones, but the ones I needed to hole went in.
“That was the trend all week and that was very nice holing 12-15 footers most of the time.
Hil on Scottish golf being in a healthy state at the moment
“It’s brilliant. It’s nice to kind of be included in the conversation. Bob is flying and it’s nice to have a good finish myself and be on the back end of that.
