Exactly a year before the Seve Trophy in 2011, Scott Jamieson had just produced two of the most important performances of his career on the Challenge Tour, and was daring to dream of what lay ahead.
Having been, by his own admission, plodding along until September, a runner-up finish in the lucrative Kazakhstan Open and another top ten the following week in Russia kick-started his season, sparking a run of form that would culminate in the Scotsman taking 14th place in the Challenge Tour Rankings – and with it a European Tour card.
From there Jamieson never looked back. After a hugely positive first half of the year which yielded five top ten finishes, he found himself in the Great Britain & Ireland team for the Seve Trophy, alongside big guns such as Ian Poulter, Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood.
Was he pinching himself?
“I remember being nervous,” said the 30 year old, who won his first European Tour title at the beginning of this season. “I was okay for the first couple of days and I played with Ross Fisher, who I’d played with a couple of times that year already. But then I played with Lee Westwood in the Saturday greensomes – that got my attention.
“I think he could tell I was a bit nervous. I hadn’t really hit many bad shots but I was a bit uptight. He said something to me after the third or fourth hole.”
Whatever Westwood said evidently worked, as the pair romped to a 4&3 victory over Miguel Angel Jiménez and Pablo Larrazábal, before Jamieson sealed Great Britain & Ireland’s 15½-12½ win over Continental Europe with a point against Larrazábal in the Sunday singles.
Three points from four and the winning putt – a significant contribution to the team led by captain Paul McGinley, who Jamieson credits with being a huge help that week.
“Obviously we all know how to play golf,” he said. “That’s why you get in these teams. So it just becomes a case of man management after that. Everybody has their own way of preparing and he was great at allowing us to do what we wanted to do, and I think he let everybody know what he thought their particular role was on the team.
“He was great with me. He just helped me, explaining that the week was all about experience and that I should take what I can from it and use that in the future to my advantage.”
This year, with McGinley turning his attentions to the European team for The 2014 Ryder Cup, Sam Torrance will take charge of GB&I, who will face an experienced Continental Europe team led by José María Olazábal.
“The last couple of years we’ve come across each other a bit and have had quick conversations,” Jamieson said of Torrance. “I’m looking forward to getting to know him better next week.
“I’m definitely playing good golf again. It has been frustrating the last few weeks playing better but not necessarily getting great scores, so hopefully there’s some good stuff on the horizon.”
Jamieson is joined in the GB&I team by compatriots Stephen Gallacher, Paul Lawrie and Marc Warren, with Englishmen Paul Casey, Tommy Fleetwood, Simon Khan, David Lynn and Chris Wood and Welshman Jamie Donaldson completing the line-up.
