Muirfield, home of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, and host of 16 Open Championships and one AIG Women’s Open, has witnessed many special performances in its 133-year history but few have been as dominant – in numbers alone, at least – as the remarkable triumph of England’s Dominic Clemons in last week’s Scottish Men’s Open Amateur Championship.
The 21-year-old from Cambridge carded rounds of 68-65-65-62 for a 24-under-par total of 260 that left him no less than 17 shots clear of the field. Safe to say that while some winners leave their opponents in their wake, Clemons left his floundering in an entirely different body of water.
Over the course of the final 54 holes, he exchanged 23 birdies and just two bogeys to first turn a three-shot first-round deficit into a pre-final round five-shot lead, and then simply run away with the title. In so doing, he added his name to a list of trophy winners that includes European Ryder Cup representatives Bernard Gallacher, Gordon Brand Jr., Philip Walton, Colin Montgomerie, Andrew Coltart, Stephen Gallacher, Tommy Fleetwood and Andy Sullivan.
Now playing out of Stetson University in Florida but previously at Hutchinson (Kansas) Community College for two years, Clemons won the 2022 NJCAA D1 National Preview, the 2023 Lindenwood Invitational and this year’s Daytona Beach Intercollegiate, but he had never given any real clue that such an astounding performance was within him. Indeed, he entered the week ranked 464th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and had never breached the top 400.
He had, however, won the Scottish Boys Under-14 Open at Craigielaw eight years ago, a few miles along the East Lothian coast from Muirfield. “My record ’round this part of Scotland is weird,” he said afterward. “But I’ve always loved links golf.”
He was also grateful to have his father, Mike, caddying for the week. “He was pushing the trolley, and from tee to green we shared a few opinions, but he left me to it,” Clemons said. “He’s laid back, and it was good to have him out there and to have family around me after all they’ve done [for me] down the years.”
Of his record-breaking winning margin, which bettered Steve Martin’s 11-stroke victory at Carnoustie in 1976, and also the location, Clemons said: “When it’s your day, it’s your day. When I was out there, I wasn’t thinking about what it means to win ’round Muirfield, but now it’s sinking in.”
On a cosmopolitan leaderboard, South Africa’s Jordan Burnand and Australia’s Kai Komulainen shared second on 7-under, Denmark’s Jamie Nielsen was alone in fourth on 6-under, Italy’s Matteo Cristoni solo fifth on 4-under, while Sweden’s David Lundgren and another South African, Altin Van Der Merwe, tied for sixth on 2-under.
Scotland’s Jack McDonald was the only other man under par for the week, and then by only one shot, reiterating just how special a week this had been for the winner who will now seek to ride the wave into this week’s St Andrews Links Trophy.
RESULTS
Matt Cooper