Padraig
Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke and Rory McIlroy are the
premier golfers of Ireland and among the sporting superstars of the
Emerald Isle, their exploits have seen a boost in interest of the
sport which has always been a passion of the Irish and the likes of
Amateur Champion Alan Dunbar and fellow 2011 Walker Cup winner Paul
Cutler are the leaders of the next generation of promising Irish
talent set to take the European Tour by storm over the next few
years. The Irish golf system has been a standard bearer for years and
years, and since 2007 Ireland as a single country has won 7 Major
championships which is more than any country bar the United States,
and the US has only won one more Major than Ireland, a truly
staggering statistic. And now Ireland has another talented youngster ready to make an impact on the European Tour. Spanish Amateur champion Reeve Whitson.
Reeve,
21, was born in Edinburgh and is the son of Kevan Whitson, head
professional at Royal County Down Golf Club in Newcastle, County Down
where Reeve and his brother Rory grew up playing the Annesley Links
and Championship course of the world renowned golf club. I first met
Reeve, along with his family, in 2004 when I first went over to
caddie at Royal County Down. I played a few holes with him, his
brother and the assistant pro at the club, he was just 12 years of
age but already there were signs of talent under the guidance of his
father from the age of 8 and with fantastic facilities available it
always seemed the Liverpool FC fan was destined for some level of
success in the game. Within four years of taking up golf he had shot
rounds in the 70s, by the age of 14 he had shot rounds in the 60's
and by the age of 16 Whitson was playing off a scratch handicap. I
can testify that if you are playing off a scratch handicap around the
courses at Royal County Down then you are indeed a great golfer, I
played off 13 at the time and my best round around the championship
course was in the 90's and I was 20 years of age.
Reeve's
talent and scores made it inevitable that the GUI would come calling
pretty quickly for his services at junior level and the Newcastle man
represented the county in the national boys team and the province of
Ulster in the boys team. He then represented Ireland in the home
internationals where he won 6 out of 6 matches at Glasgow Gailes in
2012 and progressed to compete in the 2012 Amateur Championship and
European Amateur Championship. Then at the start of March Whitson
claimed the biggest title of his fledgling career to date, the
Spanish International Amateur Championship at the magnificent La
Manga Club in Southern Spain, a truly breakthrough win which earns
the Northern Irishman a place in this week's Spanish Open, one of the
most prestigious and one of the oldest national championships in all
of golf at the Campo de Golf Parador de El Saler near Valencia on the
north-east coast of Spain.
It
is perhaps no surprise that Reeve's first big win came in Spain as he
stayed in the country for six months over the winter of 2010-11 and
has regularly returned to the country to compete in Amateur events,
something he could not have done without the support of the GUI who
have sent him to compete in tournaments on every continent which has
allowed him to further develop his game in different conditions and
on different types of courses. Despite his immense talent and
outgoing personality Reeve says that it was tough getting to know
people, make friends and feel comfortable in his surroundings in the
early years of travelling to play amateur golf around the world. The
County Down youngster states that it has always been a goal of his to
play professionally and has set his sights on representing Great
Britain and Ireland at the magnificent National Golf Links of
American in the 2013 Walker Cup this September, after which he
intends to turn professional. Just
two weeks ago Whitson was competing in a major amateur tournament on
Irish soil, the West of Ireland Amateur Championship at Rosses Point
in County Sligo and the Spanish Amateur champion progressed to the
semi-finals before losing to Niall Gorey on the first extra hole,
following losing a 3 hole advantage on the back nine.
At present Whitson doesn't have any sponsors as he still an amateur but has some lined up and if he continues his rapid ascent there can be little doubt that the offers will come flooding in for the talented and affable young man, his goals are a lot higher than just turning professional but he is realistic as he aims to get his European Tour card within five years and then move onto the PGA Tour within a decade. It certainly helps having a father that has played and taught the game for over 25 years and being nurtured by one of the great golfing institutions in the world for the last 10 years. He may not be aiming for an instant ascent to the European Tour but Reeve may not have much choice should he become just te second ever amateur to win the Spanish Open this week in Valencia. Whitson won the Spanish Amateur, matching the achievements of Sergio Garcia and Garcia went on to make the Irish Open his first ever professional win at the age of 19 in 1999. It would be a little bit of symmetry if 21-year-old Irishman Reeve Whitson went on and won the Spanish Open.
Whitson,
who is 2 years Rory McIlroy's junior, is good friends with the 2-time
Major Champion and has a tight-knit group of friends of a similar age
in the elite amateur ranks including Rory's best friend Harry Diamond
and the three can often be seen playing golf with friends over the
championship course at Royal County Down when the World Number One is
back home, Reeve followed in Rory's footsteps to some respect by competing in the Faldo series in 2008 .
The
Spanish Open was first played in 1912 and has a stellar roll of
honour, making it one of the most prestigious if not the most wealthy
Open championships in European golf. Max Faulkner, Peter Alliss,
Peter Thomson, Roberto de Vicenzo, Arnold Palmer, Bernard Gallacher,
Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Howard Clark, Nick Faldo, Colin
Montgomerie, Thomas Bjorn, Robert Karlsson, Sergio Garcia, Charl
Schwartzel, Alvaro Quiros and Francesco Molinari among several
outstanding champions, including several of Ireland's best.
Incredibly
the first ever Irish winner of the Spanish Open was Eddie Polland,
who was born in Newcastle, County Down. Polland won the 1976 and 1980
Spanish Open and claimed a career four tournaments on the European
Tour between 1973 and 1980, and in an even more amazing coincidence
Polland's first Spanish Open win came at La Manga, the same course
which Reeve Whitson triumphed over in the first week of March. Eamonn
Darcy, Padraig Harrington and Peter Lawrie have since added their
names to the list of Spanish Open winners from the Emerald Isle.
Along
with support from his family and the GUI Reeve Whitson has had an
inspirational figure to aspire to within Royal County Down Golf Club.
Simon Thornton has played on the European Tour and is currently
competing on the Challenge Tour but has taken a very different route
to the tours than his younger colleague. Born in Yorkshire Thornton
didn't take up the game until the age of 17 and turned professional
with a handicap of 3.8 moving over to Newcastle, County Down at the
age of 21 to become an assistant at the golf club, Thornton was
clearly talented but until he made the move to RCD he didn't have a
goal of becoming a professional. Simon competed regularly in the
Irish PGA region tournaments and courtesy of his good performances on
the Irish tour he qualified for the Irish Open and European Open when
they were played in Ireland and then he progressed to playing
full-time on the third tier PGA EuroPro Tour with the goal of gaining
promotion to the second tier Challenge Tour, after a win at Bovey
Castle in Devon on the 2008 EuroPro Tour Thornton earned promotion.
He
played in 12 tournaments on the Challenge Tour in 2009, missing 4
cuts and finishing in the top ten twice to finish in 51st
place on the Order of Merit and followed his first full season on the
tour with a top 30 finish at European Tour Qualifying School to earn
a place on the main European Tour. 2010 was his first full season at
the highest level of the game and although ultimately successful he
did play in 22 tournaments and finished in the top ten at the BMW
International Open at Golf Club Munchen Eichenried in Munich. Simon
sat in second position going into the final round, tied with Ross
Fisher on -15 just 3 shots behind 54-hole leader Bradley Dredge but
a1-over-par 73 took him out of contention on a day when the chasing
pack shot rounds between 69 and 67. A tie for ninth position gave him
a fighting chance of keeping his card but he made only four cuts in
the remaining eleven tournaments he played on the tour in 2010 and
finished in 141st place on the Race to Dubai.
The
experience of competing on the European Tour made Simon better able
to compete on the Challenge Tour and in 2011 he finished second and
third and recorded two other top tens to comfortably return to the
top level at the end of the 2011 season, and he claimed the biggest
professional title of his career by winning the Irish PGA
Championship with a record-low score of 19-under-par to add his name
to the illustrious list of Irish golfing legends to have won the
oldest professional tournament in Ireland. However the 2012 season
didn't go as planned and he made only 8 cuts out of 18 tournaments to
finish 161st on the Race to Dubai. Simon's route to the
tour level has been very different to the one which Reeve Whitson is
taking, and he has a wealth of experience from competing at all
levels of professional golf from he club pro level to EuroPro,
Challenge and European Tour and he is open about the difficulties and
challenges that life as a tour pro presents to an individual with a
wife (Ciara, 2004) and two children back at home in County Down. “At
the start it was very difficult because of lack of money and I didn't
have any sponsors so had to work to raise enough money to make it
viable” Because of having to work Simon says that managing his time
was tough as he tried to fit in practice and he also admits because
he never had the chance to become a good amateur he had to work his
way up through the professional ranks. “Because I had to do
everything myself I have developed good personal dedication” and I
can speak from having a real struggle in my own career within the
golf industry the more you have to work for it, the more knocks you
take along the way it gives you even greater satisfaction when you do
succeed and it gives you a work ethic that very few other competitors
have.
Simon
will compete on the Challenge Tour in 2013 with the ambition of
returning to the European Tour and is eager to win on the main tour
within the next five years. They are taking two very different routes
and come from very different golfing backgrounds but both Reeve and
Simon represent Royal County Down internationally with distinction
and the full support of the members of the Mourne Golf Club and their
families and friends, they represent the future of Irish golf and
show that there doesn't have to be a stereotypical route to the
European Tour. They each show how much dedication you need to reach
the top, being away from home for sometimes weeks at a time in
unfamiliar places where making friends is difficult. But with the
support of their families and with absolute commitment to the cause
of becoming a better golfer the men from the Mourne's are set to make
a big impact in golf in 2013.
I
will be following their progress throughout the 2013 season on
www.HooperstarGolfer.blogspot.co.uk and will publish an update as part of the Irish Open Special Report
in June. This blog was completed with the assistance and expressed
permission of both Reeve Whitson and Simon Thornton.
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