JET-LAGGED CALLUM SLIPS SEVEN OVER
PAR ON RETURN TO US COLLEGE CIRCUIT

Walker Cup team squad player Callum Macaulay’s decision to fly over from the United States to play in the Irish open amateur stroke-play golf championship last weekend seems to have left the Tulliallan player a bit jet-lagged.
Callum played well below his usual form to return a seven-over-par 79 in the first round of the NCAA Division 1 men’s East Regional championship over the Golf Club of Georgia’s 7,017yd Lakeside course.
That left him in joint 108th position in a field of 141 players with two rounds to go and with very little chance of qualifying for the season-ending grand finale of the American college golf circuit – the NCAA championship.
Callum had a double bogey 5 at the short third and reached the turn in six-over 42. He did birdie two of the inward holes – the short 13th and the long 18th – but a 79 was well over his expectations.
Jacksonville University’s Russell Knox from Inverness and Grantown on Spey’s Duncan Stewart had contrasting fortunes. Russell shot a 74 to be in joint 35th place and Stewart a nightmare 82 to be sharing 126th place at the end of the first day.
Knox would have matched par but for a double bogey 5 at the short 17th. He did birdie the fifth and the 15th.
Stewart had a triple bogey 6 at the short sixth and a double bogey 6s at the eighth and 14th in halves of 40 and 42.
Two Georgia Tech University players, Cameron Tringale and Chesson Hadley lead the classy field with 67 and 68 respectively.