THIRTY years after Troon's Colin Montgomerie won the Scottish Amateur Championship to launch a glittering career, Banchory’s Sam Locke emulated his achievement at Prestwick on Saturday.

The 18-year-old achieved his biggest success in the game after a thumping 9&8 win over Anglo-Scot Ryan Lumsden from Royal Wimbledon, sealing an automatic spot in the Scotland side for this month’s Men’s Home Internationals.

The last winner to achieve such a margin of victory in the 36-hole final was Ryder Cup stalwart Montgomerie at Nairn in 1987, when he defeated fellow Ayrshireman Alasdair Watt.

Locke, a former Scotland Boys’ international and part of the Paul Lawrie Foundation, raced to a five-up lead after nine holes as Lumsden (20) struggled to five over par to the turn. The northerner, who is coached by his dad, Andrew, then birdied five of the last eight holes to remarkably lead 10 up at lunch, an advantage he was unlikely to ever lose.

When Locke’s tee shot came back off the wall at the 19th rather than going out of bounds, Lumsden surely knew it wasn’t his day. The Royal Wimbledon member battled back to eight down at the 23rd, helped with an eagle at the 21st, but back-to-back birdies from Locke at the 24th and 25th virtually ended the contest.

With Locke placed outside the top 1,000 in the world amateur golf rankings, it was a notable scalp for the north-east player. Lumsden, after all, has performed well at Northwestern University in the US, represented Scotland last month at the European Amateur Team Championship and is placed inside the world’s top 200.

Locke, victorious from a 264-player field at this year’s new-look event, said: “Montgomerie is not a bad guy to follow in the footsteps of! I wouldn’t mind his career.

“I played really solid this morning, didn’t really do much wrong and holed a few putts.

“It’s nice to finally get a big win under my belt and hopefully I can kick on from here and enjoy more success."

On his support from 1999 Open champion Lawrie, he added: “Paul has been brilliant for me, since I was about 14. He got me into his Foundation and has helped me with all parts of my game, as well as the mental side

“Banchory have done a lot for me as a club since a young age and it was great to have people down supporting me today, including my dad.”

Lumsden, who will join Locke in the Home Internationals side bound for Moortown, rued his poor start and said: “It was just one of those days. I didn’t hit it as good as I’ve hit it this week and I found myself in the semi rough a lot of times and did a poor job of controlling the ball from there.

“My putting was also very poor, and Sam played just great golf. He made every putt he looked at, it seemed like, and shot a great score in the morning."

It was the 90th staging of the Scottish Amateur, with Locke joining a winners’ list which also includes Ronnie Shade, Charlie Green, Stephen Gallacher, Andrew Coltart, Dean Robertson and, more recently, David Law and Grant Forrest.

Prestwick, the first host of The Open Championship in 1860, was in terrific shape, along with neighbours Prestwick St Cuthbert for the 36-hole strokeplay qualifying. Prestwick staged the championship for the ninth time.

Best Ayrshire player was Stuart Easton of Irvine, who lose 3&2 in the quarter-finals to Lumsden, while Michael Smyth of Royal Troon went down 4&3 to Niklas Smyth of Germany in the last 32.