Saudi Arabia … A big contingent of nine Scots will tee-up along the Red Sea shoreline including Drumoig’s Connor Syme looking to make it four four-rounders in succession this year after regaining full Tour membership last November.
Syme, 24 turned pro after the 2017 Walker Cup signing with Niall Horan’s Modest Golf Management. He made his pro debut at the Portugal Masters in finishing a superb T12th.
He then secured his full Tour card for the 2018 season but struggled with just one top-10 and then concentrated on the
Connor Syme preparing for his debut showing in the Saudi International and being pepared for any threat of sun burn. (Photo @tourmiss)
secondary Challenge Tour gaining in experience and confidence so much so the young Scot won the 2019 Turkish Airlines Challenge on route to ending last year 14th on the money list and a full 2020 main European Tour card.
And after contesting his first event of 2020 earlier this month, Syme is now teeing-up in this week’s Saudi International.
“I was thrilled to get back out here and it was nice to get off to a pretty positive start this time around,” he said
“Last time I missed my first four cuts, so it was important to get off to a good start, which I have managed to do by playing some solid golf in my first three events.”
And the young Scot was asked also what he thought he learnt from a maiden 2018 European Tour year.
“One of the biggest things I learned first time around was in terms of planning for tournaments and also learning how to play golf courses slightly differently in terms of knowing when to play more attacking and, at the same time, more defensively,” he said.
“I was hitting so many balls and trying to do so much before a Thursday as you need to be fresh for then and also for a Sunday. I was almost burst by a Thursday trying to get myself prepared.
“Then competing on the Challenge Tour last season would probably have got me into 20 events on the main tour but I decided to go back to the Challenge Tour. It was only my second year as a pro and I was thinking about giving myself a chance to learn to win and compete regularly in events.
“It’s tough when there are only 15 cards on offer each season so being at the top end of leaderboards a lot during the season was definitely a positive.”
Though Syme has no competed since earlier this month and was out in Dubai working on his game ahead of making his way west to Saudi Arabia.
And with Niall Horan heading his management company, it prompted Syme to be asked if he’s ever attending one of Horan’s concerts.
“He is very busy with his music stuff just now and is releasing a new album shortly. But I caught up with him a few times over Christmas and he certainly loves his golf.
“Bizzarely, I went to New York with my girlfriend and he was performing on Saturday Night Live so we got to see him on that, which was good.”
Heading the Tartan contingent this week is new World No. 65 Bob MacIntyre, up two places after his share of eighth a week ago in Dubai, and edging ever closer to a maiden Masters invitation, and assured of another good haul of Ranking points in a field headed by World No. 1 Brooks Koepka
MacIntyre said: “It’s been good to pick-up a few more World Rankings places after my finish last week in Dubai, so I am getting ever-closer to the top-50.
“All I can do is keep trying my best.
“It’s great coming back here to Saudi as it’s a good track and improved so much on a year ago. It’s just so different also to Dubai where there was just so much rough.”
