FOUR OF TOP FIVE WORLD-RANKED SCOTS

ARE STUDENTS AT UNIVERSITY

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Your chances of becoming a top amateur golfer are improved if you go to university. Perhaps a sweeping statement but just look at this week's updated RandA World Amateur Golf Rankings. Four of the five leading Scots are currently students at university, three of them in America, the other at home.
In all there are 11 Scots in the leading 500, 32 in the top 1,000 of this week’s new set of ratings of the world's competitive amateur golfers.
James Byrne (Banchory and Arizona State University), pictured right by Cal Carson Golf Agency, and Ross Kellett (Colville Park) are the only Scots ranked in the top 100.
Byrne has dropped from No 18 last week to No 20 this week while Kellett has gone up one place to No 81.
Michael Stewart (Troon Welbeck and East Tennessee State University) is the third highest ranked Scot at No 220, down five places from last week.
Stuart Ballingall (Dunstan Hall and Missouri University) is hardly a household name in Scottish amateur golf but the Anglo-Scot from Norwich is the fourth highest-Scot in the WAGR at No 235, down 10 places from last week.
James White (Lundin and Stirling University), fifth individually in last week’s world universities’ men’s championship in Spain, is the fifth top Scot in 237th place, up eight places.
The next three are all from the North-east of Scotland – Fraserburgh’s Kris Nicol (257, down nine places), Peterhead’s Philip McLean (294, down three) and Aberdeen Hazlehead’s David Law (326, down one).
The only other Scots in the WAGR top 500 are Mark Hillson (389th), Glenn Campbell (4275th) and Peter Latimer (428th).
THIS WEEK'S RandA WAGR
Top 10
1 Peter Uihlein (US) (no change).
2 Bud Caley (US) (+1).
3 Russell Henley (US) (+2).
4 Nick Taylor (Can) (-2).
5 Patrick Reed (US) (+4).
6 Jonathan Randolph (US) (-2).
7 Victor Dubuisson (Fra) (no change).
8 Andrea Pavan (Ita) (no change).
9 Tommy Fleetwood (+1).
10 Jin Jeong (SKo) (-4).

Scots’ rankings
20 James Byrne (-2).
81 Ross Kellett (+1).
220 Michael Stewart (-5).
235 Stuart Ballingall (-10).
237 James White (+8).
257 Kris Nicol (-9).
294 Philip McLean (-3).
326 David Law (-1).
389 Mark Hillson (-8).
427 Glenn Campbell (-5).
428 Peter Latimer (-5).
528 Greg Paterson (-8).
558 Gordon Yates (-15).
624 Ross Bell (-6).
642 Steven McEwan (-7).]
698 Bobby Rushford (-5).
704 Paul Ferrier (-5).
707 James Hamilton (-78).
725 Fraser McKenna (-6).
729 Matthew Clark (-6).
739 Gordon Stevenson (-7).
759 Paul Shields (-10).
770 James Ross (-10).
777 Daniel Sommerville (-9).
821 Mark Bookless (-3).
835 Andrew Gunson (-4).
853 Craig Watson (no change).
881 Steven Rennie (-5).
909 Paul Betty (-6).
927 Michael Daily (-6).
938 Ross Crowe (-1).
976 Sam Binning (-6).