To paraphrase Basil Fawlty, ‘don’t mention Dunbar’. Like an old colonel with a bit of embedded shrapnel, the frenzied cut-and-thrust of golfing warfare has left Liam Johnston with one or two lingering wounds.
On the wind-buffeted battlefield of the links at Dunbar back in 2010, Johnston seemed destined for Scottish Boys’ Championship glory but having been seven-up with 14 holes to play against Troon’s David Wilson in the 36-hole final he eventually lost at the second extra-hole. As Lazarus politely applauded Wilson’s rousing recovery from behind the clubhouse window, Johnston took on the kind of haunted, shell-shocked look you’d adopt after a heavy artillery bombardment.
“It took me a while to get over the final and my results after that showed that it took me a while too,” reflected Johnston. “Matchplay golf is all about momentum and once the tide had turned it just spiralled from there. A couple of years later, I won the Tennant Cup on the Scottish circuit and that finally helped to shake that defeat off. I felt I wasn’t just Liam Johnston who threw away the Scottish Boys’ final, I was now a winner. That proved to me I could do it.”
This capricious pursuit of fluctuating fortunes often offers up redemption. The defeat at Dunbar is a distant memory – golf writers like to dredge up distant memories, though - and Johnston continues to make impressive strides in the game. His recent victory in the African Amateur Strokeplay Championship underlined his talents and increasing confidence.
Johnston went to the University of Tennessee in the US to study psychology while on a golf scholarship but that particular choice of subject had nothing to do with his mind-mashing Scottish Boys’ experience. “I was originally doing business studies but couldn’t get my head round that,” he said.
If you sat us crude golfing amateurs on a chair and asked us to go through the thought processes we adopt when faced with a jittery chip over a burn, the psychologist would probably need to lie down themselves. Johnston has far more of a flair for this flummoxing pursuit, though, and he has certainly found his studies beneficial to his golf. “It’s about how you deal with yourself as much as dealing with the course,” added the 24-year-old from Dumfries, whose older brother Matthew is a highly valuable resource on The Herald’s sports desk. “There are plenty of things I can use in my golf. Whatever you feed the mind is what it’s going to come out with.”
Together with his coach, James Erskine, Johnston has worked hard on sharpening up his strengths and eradicating the weaknesses in his game. “My driving was letting me down,” he admitted. “I had a tendency to have the odd drive that was totally destructive as opposed to merely going into the rough. It’s much steadier now and results show that. South Africa was a really rewarding trip. You don’t want to say it but I had a feeling a win was on the way and topping it off with that victory was very pleasing.”
Getting a major win under his belt so early in the campaign has given Johnston the ideal springboard for the campaign ahead. While he wasn’t included in the initial GB&I training squad from which the majority of this season’s Walker Cup team will be picked, Johnston is keen to barge his way into contention and make the selectors sit up and take note. “Getting into the Walker Cup would be a huge accomplishment but it’s a bit of a blessing that I’m not in the training squad,” he said. “Your name is not really up in the lights so you can fly under the radar a bit more. It’s a big goal of mine but I can’t get consumed by thoughts of that. It’s up to me to keep performing and make it hard for them not to pick me. You can’t hope for a pick, you have to make it happen. The win in Africa was a great start to the year for me but these are early days. It’s a long season and the hard work starts here.”
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