Scott Mayne set the standard for other golfers to follow

I erred in last week’s column.  In claiming that Terrence Daniels was the second Bermudian to reach the final stage of U.S. Amateur qualifying, I committed a significant blunder: I forgot about Scott Mayne.

Scott Mayne was the very first Bermudian to achieve this goal. Scott reached the final stages of U.S. Amateur qualifying in 1987 and went on to qualify for match play.

Each year, only 64 final qualifiers out of 312 starting hopefuls will reach the match play stage.

The record book shows that Scott lost in the first round of match play on the 19th hole to eventual winner, Billy Mayfair, a successful Tour professional. The record book also shows that, in 1988, Scott reached the finals of the USGA Mid-Amateur, losing 2 & 1 to David Eger, now a successful professional on the Champions Tour.

My thanks go out to Kim Swan for reminding me of Scott’s successes, and I consider myself well and truly smacked about the head for my error.

Frankly, I should have known better since I played quite a bit of golf with Scott prior to my moving to England in June 1985.

My own successes at golf in Bermuda came in the ten year period 1975 to 1985, and Scott was becoming a force in local golf during the early 1980’s.  During those years, Scott and I had several battles against one another, and many great games of golf together, none better than when he and I, together with Noel van Putten and Denton Outerbridge represented Bermuda at the World Amateur Team Championships in Hong Kong in 1984. 

Best

At that time, Scott was getting better and better and it was clear that Scott Mayne was well on his way to becoming Bermuda’s best amateur.

He was long off the tee, his irons were a thing of beauty and he had a short game that never seemed to let him down.

In 1984, when we were heading off to Hong Kong, there was the usual banter and needle from our golfing buddies about how the team would do generally, and between Scott and me, who would perform better.

Most bets were on Scott and because of that, I dug down deep, shooting a four round total of 298, finishing in a T20 position overall and bettering Scott by quite a few shots. 

That, however, was my last hurrah where Scott Mayne was concerned. Scott continued to improve and he left me and all the other local amateurs well behind in his dust.

Strangely enough, if I recall correctly, Scott turned professional, played one local tournament as a professional, seemed to regret his decision and applied to have his amateur status reinstated.

I recall thinking how odd it all was and that none of it made any sense.

I am not sure in which year all of that happened, however, what I am sure of, is that Scott Mayne is truly one of Bermuda’s finest golfers ever.