KELLETT POISED TO DISPLACE BYRNE AS
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SCOTLAND'S NO 1 IN WORLD RANKINGS

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Motherwell's Ross Kellett is on the brink of overhauling Arizona State University State student James Byrne from Banchory as the leading Scot in the R&A World Amateur Golf Rankings.
Kellett's consistent form over the last few weeks - joint 17th in the Lytham Trophy and 10th in the Irish men's open amateur championship on Sunday - has enabled him to close to within one place of Byrne in this week's updated rankings.
Byrne is still the top Scot in 35th place but his Colville Park rival is now breathing down his neck in 36th place, having risen six spots from last week.
Fraserburgh greenkeeper Kris Nicol's second place finishes in both the Lytham Trophy and the Irish championship have seen him soar 113 places from last week to No 264. He is the third Scot in the world amateur rankings behind third-place Michael Stewart from Troon, a student at East Tennessee State University.
Two other Scots who have made significant improvements over the past seven days are Stirling University student Michael Daily (Erskine) who has gone up 177 places to No 778 after finishing fourth in the Golf Data Lab Scottish youths championship at Monifieth on Sunday.
Irvine-born Andrew Gunson, pictured above, a student at the University of California-Santa Barbara, has jumped 140 places to No 801. The 6ft 1in, 22-year-old third-year student finished joint 20th in the Big West Championship at Mission Viejo, California after looking a possible winner until he had a last-round 82 following two earlier 72s.
Thanks to Alasdair Malcolm of the Ayrshire Golf website, I can tell you that Andrew is the son of Brian Gunson who was a member at Ballochmyle and Prestwick St. Cuthbert before turning professional.between 1982 & 1987.
Brian played on the Safari Tour and the European Tour and eventually returned to Scotland where he was a professional at Turnberry, eventually succeeding Bob Jamieson as head professional there. Brian left Turnberry around 2002 - 2003 to become Director of Golf at Shady Canyon near Irvine, California, which explains why "Shady Canyon" is listed as Andrew Gunson's home golf club on the UCSB website.
Scots in the top 1,000 of the world amateur rankings (with movement from last week noted in brackets):
35 James Byrne (+1).
36 Ross Kellett (+6).
180 Michael Stewart (-6).
264 Kris Nicol (+113).
268 Glenn Campbell (-7).
287 Stuart Ballingall (-7).
321 Philip McLean (-15).
342 James White (-71).
362 Mark Hillson (-4).
423 David Law (+1).
525 Greg Paterson (+68).
535 Bobby Rushford (-10).
561 James Hamilton (-10).
568 Steven McEwan (+42).
640 Gordon Yates (+43).
651 Scott Crichton (+6).
674 Peter Latimer (-8).
675 Daniel Sommerville (-7).
690 James Ross (-48).
701 Fraser McKenna (-58).
733 Gordon Stevenson (-8).
747 Craig Watson (-8).
778 Michael Daily (+177).
798 Paul Ferrier (-9).
801 Andrew Gunson (+140).
824 Mark Bookless (-54).]
886 Scott Borrowman (-70).
897 Steven Rennie (-25).
928 Fraser Fotheringham (-18).
937 Ross Crowe (-15).
945 Sam Binning (-56).
990 Paul Betty (-52).

TOP TEN IN THE R&A WAGR
1 Peter Uihlein (US) (no change).
2 Nick Taylor (Canada) (no change).
3 Tommy Fleetwood (England) (no change).
4 Victor Dubuisson (France) (no change).
5 Bud Cauley (US) (no change).
6 Jonathan Randolph (US) (no change).
7 Andrea Pavan (Italy) +4).
8 Patrick Reed (US) (-1).
9 Jesper Kennegard (Sweden) (-1).
10 David Lingmerth (Swden) (-1).