Connor Graham’s reputation as one of the finest young golfers in Europe was strengthened thanks to a fantastic performance in France.
The Perthshire talent navigated through to the final of the French International Amateur Boys’ Championship before being edged out in the tightest of showdown matches.
Graham (16), of Blairgowrie Golf Club, advanced through from the strokeplay qualification in third place thanks to rounds of three-under par and two-under par.
His form continued and he would later meet Frenchman Louis Anceaux in the final of the matchplay format, played over 36 holes.
In fact, 39 holes were required to separate the pair and it was Anceaux who managed to take the title by the finest of margins.
For Graham, however, it represented another superb week - albeit he picked up nasty foot blisters due to all the walking!
“They got worse and worse, and even started popping in the final round,” he revealed.
“I had to get the plasters on and a couple of pairs of socks, but it got quite bad at the end.”
On his performance, Graham added: “I was really happy. I played well in the strokeplay qualifying rounds and that managed to keep it going consistently over the week.
“The final was great fun. The match was very tight the whole way and nobody really pushed ahead by a lot.
“I think I ended up playing 10 rounds of golf in six days so it was also a very tiring week. I was getting up quite early for 8.30am tee-offs.”
Graham has aspirations of making Europe’s Junior Ryder Cup team and this performance will do his cause no harm.
He said: “This will help a lot towards that and doing so well at a big event.”
Graham was meant to be playing in the Scottish Boys this week but is taking a short break to rest and recover ahead of playing in the European Nations Cup in Spain.
He told the PA: “That is one of the biggest amateur events in Europe so I’ll be preparing right for that and getting my game ready.
“I’ll just be trying to play well again. The event has the top four players from every country.
“There will be some very good players. I’ll try play four good rounds and see where it takes me.”
