Joe Bryce bags 12 birdies to land career-best Tartan Pro Tour win at Pollok

Joe Bryce, yet another player to roll off Bathgate’s conveyor belt of golfing talent, landed the biggest win of his career after carding an incredible 12 birdies in the final round of the Tartan Pro Tour’s Pollok Open.

The 24-year-old, a PGA trainee at the West Lothian club, had started the day four shots off the lead in the sixth event of the season on Paul Lawrie’s circuit after an opening 71 at the Glasgow venue.

But, as overnight leader Fraser Moore quickly fell away after dropping four shots in the first six holes, Bryce produced a performance that was every bit as impressive as DP World Tour winner David Law’s 61 in the corresponding round in the same event last year.

He birdied the first, fourth, sixth, seventh and ninth going out, with a bogey at the fifth coming in the middle of that run. A lost ball also led to a double-bogey 6 at the 14th, but that was sandwiched by gains at the tenth, 11th, 13th, 15th, 16th and 17th.

It added up to a nine-under 62, giving him a four-shot win over both Fraser McKenna (70-67) and Michael Stewart (69-68), with Danny Kay (68-70) one further back.

“It was just one of those days,” said Bryce, who won the Craigmillar Park Open and Battle Trophy back-to-back in 2019 in his amateur days. “I’d been struggling with my putting a bit, but it’s been getting better each week the past month or so and I just putted the lights out today, to be honest.

“I hit the ball really well, lots of nice irons and wedges and drove it pretty solid as well. I gave myself plenty of chances and holed a good few 10-15 footers. They were the ones that hadn’t been dropping recently, but they all seemed to go in today, which was good.”

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