Fife golfer Connor Syme playing alongside major champion at Open

Drumoig’s Connor Syme teeing off at the first hole on day one of the 151st Open at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake today (Pic: Warren Little/Getty Images)

The Drumoig 28-year-old started off today with Texan Reed, 32, and Spaniard Jose Luis Ballester Barrio, this year’s European Amateur Championship winner, for company at Hoylake’s Royal Liverpool Golf Club and he’s playing alongside them tomorrow too.

It’s Syme’s third open after 2017’s as an amateur at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, also in Merseyside, his first major, and 2019’s at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland’s County Antrim.

He went out after two days both times round so he’ll be hoping to get third time lucky on the Wirral and make the cut for the weekend.

This week’s Open follows a four-over-par 74th-placed finish, on 284, at the Scottish Open in East Lothian at the weekend.

Fellow Fifer Calum Hill was hoping to secure one of the last three Open qualification spots at that North Berwick contest, won by Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy with a 15-under-par 265, but missed out, finishing joint 25th on a five-under-par 275.

Sunday’s Open places went to South Korean Byeong Hun An, Swede David Lingmerth and Denmark’s Nicolai Hojgaard.