David

Law

The 29-year-old Meronk had been trending toward his career-first title all season, which has included making 11 cuts in 13 starts with six top-10 finishes prior to his win. Three of those were top-five results, including a solo third at the Dutch Open and T-3 finishes at the Qatar Maters and Catalunya Championship. “It’s such a relief, to be honest,” said Meronk afterward. “I’ve been coming quite close a couple of times this year and to finally open the door is just a dream come true. That’s why we practice every day and I’m super happy.” New Zealand’s Ryan Fox finished runner-up for the third time this season, marking his seventh top-10 in 2022. Also of note Sunday at Mount Juliet Estate were three players who earned their spots at St. Andrews through the Open Qualifying Series: Scotland’s David Law, American John Catlin and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti finished T-4 at 15-under 273 to secure their tickets to St Andrews. “It’s a dream come true,” said Law, who will make his major debut at The Open. “I chose not to go to Final Qualifying last week so I could focus on this event and so now that getting a place has happened, I’m over the moon. … Playing in front of those crowds is going to be amazing. I’ve never played a major before so do it at St Andrews for the first time will be unbelievable.” Next week will mark Zanotti’s third appearance in The Open, while Catlin will make his second consecutive event start. Meronk, Fox, Law and Zanotti are in the field for this week’s Scottish Open.

After a bogey on the second hole of his first round at the Torrance Course at St. Andrews, the 30-year-old Scotsman went bogey free through 67 holes, carding 20 birdies and one eagle before dropping his second bogey of the week on Sunday at the 16th. He parred out for a 4-under 68 and finished at 20-under 268, four shots behind winner Grant Forrest. Law has been riding a wave of momentum since a T-51 finish at the Made in HimmerLand in May. Since then he’s made eight consecutive cuts, notched two top 10s (Hero Open, T-7 Porsche European Open) and two top 20s (T-18 Cazoo Open, T-15 ISPS Handa World Invitational). He’s 10-for-18 overall on the season. Law’s lone European Tour victory came at the 2019 ISPS Handa Vic Open.

Only the top 60 and ties made it through to the weekend (there’s a second cut for the top 35 and ties after round three) at 13th Beach and Law’s score was only good enough for T73. Everything looked good after he followed up his 68 on the Creek Course with three birdies in the first five holes at the Beach Course today. But the Beach is the tougher layout and the Scot bogeyed 6 and 8 before a final dropped shot at 16, three holes from home, proved fatal. Others who failed to make the cut which fell at 5-under 139 included: 140 Connor Syme, HaoTong Li, Andrew Dodt, Nick O’Hern, 141 John Catlin, Wade Ormsby, 142 Brett Rumford.

That left the Scot five back from leader Alejandro Canizares on a day of low scoring at 13th Beach in Geelong, Australia. Law played the easier Creek Course today and stumbled with two bogeys (12 and 17) and two birdies (14 and 18) on his opening nine, one of those dropped shots coming at the par-5 17th. But his bounceback par breaker at 18 fuelled a spurt which saw Law birdie the 1st hole and eagle the 2nd. A final circle at 7 and two closing pars made it a solid start. Presuming he makes the cut, the 28-year-old will now play his next three rounds at the tougher Beach Course.

The Scottish winner of the Vic Open struggled after his breakthrough, ending the year with 14 failures to breach the top 40. However he found himself T12 at halfway last week in Abu Dhabi and if a pair of weekend 76s hurt he was talking a good game. “A very up and down year and, ultimately, disappointing after winning,” he admitted to The Scotsman newspaper last week in Abu Dhabi. “I found it quite tough, to be honest, as I was going to courses I’d never been before and the preparation changed quite a lot because of that. The goal is to win again, but you need to give yourself chances to do that. It’s not like you are going to win every time you are up there. You might just win one in 20 when you are up there. It’s about getting those chances and gaining more experience.”

The Scot kickstarted his nation’s strong showing in the 2019 European Tour, but by the end of it he was close to being a forgotten figure. He won the Victorian Open in fine fashion back in February and was steady enough afterwards, adding top 20s in Morocco and Belgium. But, having won on a links-like track, the links swing spelled trouble. He missed cuts in the Irish and Scottish Open and it caught. He ended the season with a run of 2-for-11 with not one finish better than T60. Safe to say he could do with rediscovering some form and he’ll be a little happy that he starts 2020 on this course because he was T26 here last year.

When Law opened his first European Tour campaign with a win in the Victorian Open on his fifth start he had good reason to believe he might be the best Scottish hope of Rookie of the Year. Instead he acted as a trailblazer, with Robert MacIntyre taking most of the plaudits and Law has fallen backward. He had a run of missed cuts soon after the victory, then made six weekends in a row, but since then he has gone 2-for-9 with the results T60 in the KLM Open and T72 at the BMW PGA Championship. He’s 84th in the Race to Dubai so if he wants a long drawn out season in the big money events he needs to get a wriggle on.

Through three holes of this match they were evenly matched, parring the first and second then making birdie-2 at the third. A par at the 354-yard fourth hole was enough to go 1-0 up, but the roles were reversed on the 474-yard par-4 fifth. However at the 164-yard par-3 David Law stiffed his tee shot and the Indians couldn’t hole their own birdie putt to be defeated 2-1. The Scots take on Portugal in the second game.

Last summer the 27-year-old grad from the Paul Lawrie Foundation was on the brink of quitting the tour lifestyle, but victory on the Challenge Tour reinvigorated him and now he’s reaped even greater reward just five appearances into his rookie campaign. He made three front nine birdies, but also bogeyed 5 and 9, the latter the honest confession. His response was a pair of par breakers at 10 and 11. Stood on the 16th tee three shots back he said: “We were trying to finish three-two-four for a top-three finish. Then birdie 16, par 17, and going down the last we said we need eagle, you never know what can happen.” What did happen was a fairway wood approach to 8'0" which he converted. Meanwhile long-time leader Ormsby crashed to a double bogey and Kennedy couldn’t respond. “Just to be a European Tour player I was happy with,” reflected Law. “This sort of changes things a little bit. I’ll go home, reflect a little bit on things and reassess.”

That’s three swings behind joint-leaders Jason Scrivener and Nick Flanagan. The Challenge Tour grad fired a bogey-free 67 at the Beach Course Thursday and went one better today with six birdies and 12 pars at the Creek. Starting with a red number at 10, Law picked up further shots at 13 and 17 before closing with three birdies in his final five holes coming home. The Scot is just 1-for-4 on the European Tour this season after finally gaining his card and is yet to have a top ten at this level. He’ll continue his bid with two rounds at the Beach Course this weekend.