"Longshot" Lane Breaks Through
Barry Lane wins his first official European Tour event at the Bell's Scottish Open
It’s the best fortnight in professional links golf with the playing of the Scottish Open followed by The Open Championship. The Tour Backspin journey through the past travels back to 1988 when Barry Lane won his first European Tour title at the Bell’s Scottish Open played on the King’s Course at Gleneagles. Scroll down to learn more about this tournament that was just a few years removed from the Glasgow Open being rechristened the Scottish Open.
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Barry Lane Comes Through at Gleneagles
Barry Lane became an assistant professional at Downshire Golf Club, on the outskirts of Bracknell, west of London, at the age of 16, and remained there for 8 years. After three failed attempts to earn his playing privileges at the European Tour Qualifying School, he finally qualified for the 1982 season.
He experienced very little success on the tour, and then lost his card in 1985. His biggest success during this time was winning the 1983 PGA Assistants’ Championship at Coombe Hill in Kingston Upon Thames. The win qualified him for the World Assistants’ Championship in Florida that December, and he won that by six strokes. These tournaments were not sanctioned by the European Tour.
He again qualified for the European Tour in 1986, the same year that the Glasgow Open, a tournament held at Haggs Castle Golf Club, rebranded under a new sponsor as the Bell’s Scottish Open. Bell’s is one of the best-selling blended Scotch whiskies in Great Britain.
Lane played in 20 events in 1986 and finished 71st on the Order of Merit. His career arc continued its upward trend in 1987, as he finished 27th on the Order of Merit. He also won the Equity & Law Challenge, an unofficial 36-hole event that awarded points for birdies and eagles. His prize winnings of £20,000 were the largest of his nascent career.
The Bell’s Scottish Open moved to the King’s Course at Gleneagles in Auchterarder that same year, 1987, and was moved on the schedule to the week before The Open Championship. Ian Woosnam of Wales won the event that year in a wire-to-wire performance, resulting in a 7-stroke winning margin.
In the months leading up to the 1988 Bell’s Scottish Open, there had been 15 different winners in the 15 tournaments played, including four first-time winners. The European players were still riding the high of winning the Ryder Cup on American soil for the first time the past September. The only players from that Ryder Cup team missing from the Scottish Open were Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, and Nick Faldo, who all chose to prepare for The Open Championship.
The purse for 1988 was increased by £50,000, to £250,000, with the winner receiving £41,660. The King’s Course at Gleneagles had been toughened up with less generous fairways, thicker rough, and relatively fast greens compared to 1987. It played to 6,745 yards and played to a par of 71.
Raymond Jacobs, of The Herald (Glasgow Edition), handicapped the European players in the event. The prospects for defending champion Ian Woosnam were unknown, as he was returning from a forced one-month layoff due to a wrist injury sustained in a motorbike accident. Jacobs was keen on the prospects of the Masters champion, Sandy Lyle, who was returning from a week off during which he consulted with his father, who was also his swing coach.
Jacobs pointed out that five of the European Ryder Cup members were in a dry period. Sam Torrence, Gordon Brand Jr., Ken Brown, Howard Clark, and Eamon Darcy were all in prolonged slumps and looking for redemption at Gleneagles.
Jacobs considered the U.S. PGA TOUR players competing in the Scottish Open to be capable of winning the title. Those players included Fred Couples, Tom Kite, Payne Stewart, who was runner-up at the 1985 Open Championship, Mark O’Meara, and Ben Crenshaw.
Nobody had Barry Lane, with no official European Tour wins to his name, as a player to be worried about. He was truly a longshot.
The Bell’s Scottish Open played from Wednesday to Saturday, and the first round featured every type of weather associated with golf in Scotland. Heavy showers, fitful breezes, and sunshine were all experienced and contributed to the over-5-hour rounds. At the end of the long day, it was American Fred Couples and Spaniard Ryder Cup member José Rivero who sat atop the leaderboard with scores of 64. The less familiar names of Mats Hallberg and Russell Weir were next with scores of 65 and 66, respectively. Barry Lane came in with a round of 70 while Sandy Lyle posted a 68.
“That was a great par but not as good as the bogey four I made at the short 8th.”
Couples suffered through the second round with a migraine headache, rain that lashed the course, and another long five-hour-plus round but was able to card a 68 for a total of 132, and held a one-stroke lead over Australian Mike Harwood (68-65), and two shots over Rivero, who had a 70 and was tied at 134 with Peter Fowler, also from Australia, who had rounds of 71 and 63, and Stephen Bennett, and Englishman who went 69-65.
Barry Lane came in with a 67 to almost no notice even though he was tied with Lyle and Ian Baker-Finch at 137. Lyle’s round included a 4-iron he duffed, leaving himself 40 yards short of the 6th hole green, but he still managed to make par.
“I did well to get up and down in two from 40 yards for par,” he told reporters, including Alistar Nicol of the Daily Record out of Edinburgh. “That was a great par but not as good as the bogey four I made at the short 8th.”
On that hole, Lyle was short of the green off the tee, chunked his chip, and the next one, before holing a nasty 6-foot putt for his bogey. At the 12th hole, he shanked a 120-yard approach shot for another bogey, but he birdied three of the last five holes.
“And I had no shanks today!”
Stiff breezes made the third round a challenge, but Barry Lane answered with three consecutive birdies after a bogey on the 3rd hole. He made the turn in 33, and matched that score on the back nine for a 66. He was tied for the lead at 203 with Roger Chapman, who added a 67 to his two previous rounds of 68, and Fowler, who came in with a 69. Couples lurked at 204 after a third-round 72, and Weir was at 205, one shot ahead of O’Meara (67), and Lyle (69).
“I’m still very much in the hunt,” Lyle insisted to Nicol of the Daily Record. “And I had no shanks today!”
The weather conditions during the final round were the best of the week, and many players took advantage. But it was Barry Lane, who got off to a fast start and then fought off every challenge, who prevailed. Mats Lanner, a young Swede, went low with a 63 early in the round, which shot him up the leaderboard, finishing at 277.
Couples, Fowler, and Chapman all dropped three shots in the first five holes. Lane bogeyed the 3rd hole, but then went on a run of three consecutive birdies that put him five shots clear of his closest pursuer.
Rivero, winner in Monte Carlo the week before the Scottish Open, played a steady round, posting a 68 for a total of 274, while Lyle finished 3, 4, 2, 4, 3, including birdies at the 14th and 16th holes, and an eagle at the final hole, but he knew it wasn’t enough to catch Lane.
“I knew Barry had enough in hand and it’s great for him to win for a first time,” Lyle said to Mitchell Platts of the Sunday Sun out of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. “My game’s sharp—I’m looking forward to the Open at Royal Lytham this week.”
Lyle finished with a final round 68 and a total of 274, tied with Rivero. Lane’s birdie at the 12th hole pushed his lead to six shots. He wobbled slightly coming home to finish with a 68, a total of 271, and a three-stroke victory.
Lane was overcome with emotion as he walked off the 18th green and into the arms of his wife, Melanie.
“It’s a great feeling, a dream come true,” Lane told reporters after the round. “It wasn’t until I saw Melanie standing there that it really sank in.”
Lane was very popular with his fellow players on the European Tour, where he won four more titles before playing on the European Senior Tour, on which he won the Cleveland Golf/Srixon Scottish Senior Open and seven other titles.
But his biggest win was his first, coming at the King’s Course at Gleneagles in the Bell’s Scottish Open in 1988. He died in 2022 at the age of 62.
Here’s what I’ve written about the Scottish Open in the past:
“Feherty Wins Scottish Open, Loses Trophy” (2024) The wild story of David Feherty winning the 1986 Bell’s Scottish Open, then celebrating with the road manager of Led Zepplin, and ultimately losing the trophy.
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Bonus Story
Russell Weir’s Scottish Open Commute
Russell Weir finished the Bell’s Scottish Open in 1988 with a disappointing final round score of 73 for a four-day total of 278, seven strokes behind the winner, Barry Lane. But it was a very successful week for the PGA club professional from the Cowal Club in Hunters Quay, southwest of Gleneagles.
Weir shot 66, 72, 67 in the first three rounds, all while commuting from Hunters Quay, a two-hour commute that included a 30-minute ferry ride across the River Clyde. It was a commute that he was very familiar with, as he had been commuting to and from events on what was known as the Tartan Tour, a local circuit where he had been the leading money winner the two years prior, and was leading again in 1988.
One of his main goals at the 1988 Bell’s Scottish Open was to finish in the top five among players who had not already earned an exemption into The Open Championship at Royal Lytham. This would earn him an exemption into the tournament.
The long commute to Gleneagles didn’t seem to bother Weir as tied for 8th. That finish was good enough to earn him an exemption in The Open Championship, where he missed the cut.
Tour Backspin Quiz | Scottish Open Trivia
Who has won the Scottish Open multiple times?
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Tour Backspin Quiz Answer
Both Ernie Els and Ian Woosnam have won multiple Scottish Opens. Els won in 2000 and 2003. Woosnam won in 1987, 1990, and 1996.
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