Weddings don’t pay for themselves. “The bills keep racking up,” chuckled Connor Syme. Or did he grimace?
A three-under 67 in his third round of the Genesis Scottish Open yesterday for a nine-under total left Syme on the fringes of the top-20.
At the time, the position he was occupying was worth around £85,000. That would buy a few bottles of Blue Nun for the knees-up.
There’s more than prize money to play for, of course. Syme still has a chance of nabbing one of three tee-times for next week’s Open at Royal Troon and the Fifer is aiming to give it a good go in today’s final round.
“There’s definitely a chance,” said Syme of a fluctuating qualifying situation. “You can’t help but look at it and it will keep changing. But hopefully I can have a really good final day and it all flips in my favour.”
After a fourth-place finish in the BMW International Open last weekend, Syme has continued that good form here on home turf.
The 29-year-old started the 2024 campaign with a trio of top-10 finishes in Africa but, in this game of tinkering and tweaking, he opted to change his driver and ended up missing four of his next six cuts.
Syme is back on the straight and narrow now, though. “Sometimes, it comes back to bite you a little bit,” he said of that switch of tools. “Eventually, I was really struggling off the tee which is normally my strength.
“But we’ve put in some really positive work and in Germany last week, I think I was leading the driving stats of those players who had made the cut.”
Syme has three seconds and four thirds during his career on the DP World Tour, while he played in the final group on the Sunday of the flagship BMW PGA Championship last September.
All these experiences help. “You take a lot from those moments,” added Syme. “Even though you could be quite nervous and feeling like you can't do it, you still can. Hopefully tomorrow's an example of that.”
Grant Forrest finished two shots behind Syme on seven-under after a 67 which ended with a bogey on the 18th.
“It was a sore way to finish,” said the local man, who is still looking to go out with a bang on the final day. “Sunday would be a nice time for that low one to come.”
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