Andy Smith

Attached to Tudor Park club in Maidstone, but only plays �??occasionally�?� there as needed an operation on his stomach last year (twisted bowel) and does not play any professional or club events. Qualified at Littlestone with rounds of 70-68.
Smith's thoughts on qualifying for the Open Championship:
I really cannot believe this has happened to me. I only entered Open qualifying this year because the events were in Kent. I haven't got much money at the moment and I have been doing all kinds of part-time jobs to keep myself going �?? labouring, landscape gardening for one of my friends, and a bit of work as a carpenter's mate. I play occasionally at Tudor Park, with the members and with some friends there, but I've not really been playing much since my operation for a twisted bowel last year.
I usually get problems with nerves on big occasions but for some reason I've felt really happy out there on the course in this event, in both rounds. It is as if I felt that I was going to do well �?? but I've never felt like that before in a big competition. I'm even using borrowed clubs this week, with one wedge that I found in my garage at home and another wedge that was in the lost property room at Tudor Park. My own irons and wedges are older, and non-conforming now to the regulations so I've had to borrow a set from a member at Tudor Park. I only used them for the first time in practice last week, when I paid £25 to come down here for an extra practice round ahead of Monday's practice.
It's just like everything has been meant to be, and on the course I felt as if things would be OK �?? it's incredible. I'm in a daze.
But I've played Littlestone before as a county junior, although that was eight or nine years ago, and I love links golf. Some people can't take the bad bounces and things like that, but I love it. I've also played Royal St George's a couple of times in the past, in two amateur events, and I can't wait to go back there again now! It's a dream.
I've tried Open qualifying twice before, once in Scotland at Glasgow Gailes and then at Lytham where I missed the play-off by one shot. So this is third time lucky I suppose, and when we re-started this morning I hit a great drive down the 12th hole and my approach with a five iron just kept going and ended up 35 feet past the pin at the back of the green. But then the putt never looked like missing and I just thought then that it was my day. I travelled back home to Maidstone last night, after play was called off because of the light, and my attitude this morning was that I was going to go out and birdie every hole.
Although I bogeyed the 14th I kept my belief and got birdies at both the 15th and 16th. Then I parred 17, which is a tricky hole, and on the final hole I knew that par would give me a good score but my drive ended up in a fairway bunker and, with my left leg in the bunker and my right leg out of it, I managed to flush a nine iron around 170 yards so that it finished pin high on the left of the green. I was only trying to lay it up front left. My chip was pulled slightly and it trickled off the back left of the green, so I then had a very tricky putt up the bank on to the green. Fortunately, I got it right and was left with just a tap in for par, a 68, and the lead on my own. Then it was just a case of waiting around to see if anyone could catch me. To win this event is unbelievable. Now it's the Open but I can't afford to play much so I will just go back up to Tudor Park to see if I can get a game or two and then it will be down to St George's for Open practice!