Scotland’s Scott Jamieson had a rollercoaster of a tournament in Abu Dhabi, where he opened with a bogey-free 63 to record the lowest round of the tournament at the HSBC Championship but finished T-10 by matching the highest round of the final day.
The 38-year-old Scotsman, No. 283 in the world rankings, stayed in contention through three rounds and held a one-shot lead after 54 holes. But Jamieson surrendered his advantage after opening with back-to-back bogeys, failing to get up and down from the sand at the first and missing the green again at the second, putting eventual winner Thomas Pieters of Belgium in the driver’s seat. It marked the second top 10 in Abu Dhabi for Jamieson, who is 6-for-10 in the event. He said after his first round, he wasn’t sure exactly how his game was going to be taking a different approach during his offseason. “This is the first off-season I haven’t actually peeled the skin back and try to figure out how to get better,” he said Thursday. “Felt like the game was in a good place finishing in Dubai (T-13 at Dubai Championship in November) and just missed out on a top-10 there. I’ve been driving it a lot better the last few events of the year last year, so no, I was pretty comfortable where my game was. I just had to hope that it turned up again eight weeks later.” He may need to reexamine a few things after making seven bogeys and just two birdies in his 5-over 77 on Sunday, which dropped him into a tie for 10th with Adam Scott. He’s in the field this week at the Dubai Desert Classic, where Jamieson has made 10 starts and missed just one cut (2019). His best finish at Emirates GC was a T-5 in 2012. He was T-27 last year.