Into THE Sunset?
Search the tee times of this month’s PGA of Australasia Tour events – the Vic Open and World Super 6 Perth – and one name you won’t find is that of 2015 Australian PGA Champion Nathan Holman. And he’s more than happy with that.
When he won the Australian PGA in 2015 Nathan Holman seemed to confirm what many had long believed: the young Victorian was one of Australia’s brightest golfing prospects.
But just three short years later, at 27, Holman hasn’t played a tournament round since March 2018 and isn’t sure when – or even if – he ever will again.
Rather than spend his days practising his short game, Holman is instead pursuing a career in building and design.
He’s gone full ‘95’ and, perhaps surprisingly, couldn’t be happier.
“I start at 8, finish at 4.30 and have an hour for lunch,” he says with a grin. “And when I knock o I go home or to the gym or to footy training.
“I haven’t played footy for eight years. I’m loving it.”
Holman knows there is an army of 95 workers who will think he has, quite literally, gone mad. But he hasn’t.
As the old saying goes, until you’ve walked a mile in another man’s shoes…
*** “It feels a lot longer,” Holman says reflectively when asked how, just three years after hoisting one of Australia’s most prestigious trophies, he could be working in an oce and enjoying it. “Bad golf seems to take forever, I suppose.” Holman isn’t the first, nor will he be the last, to be beaten down by the game. What for most is a passionate recreation takes on a completely dierent hue once it becomes work and the likeable Victorian is unquestionably a victim of that inevitable change.
WHEN IT’S GOING WELL THERE IS NO BETTER JOB IN THE WORLD THAN TO PLAY GOLF. BUT WHEN IT’S NOT GOING WELL IT CAN BE AWFUL. REALLY AWFUL. – NATHAN HOLMAN
But it is an odd situation for one as young as Holman. Usually it takes at least a decade or two for common sense to win the war with the elite game.
“They say tournaments start on the back nine Sunday, but that’s not quite true,” Holman says, displaying a wisdom perhaps beyond his years.
“Sometimes they start with a bogey at 7.30 Sunday morning with no crowds and 20 shots o the lead and nothing to really play for. But you still have to go out and finish 18 holes.
“When it’s going well there is no better job in the world than to play golf. But when it’s not going well it can be awful. Really awful.”
The Ocial World Golf Ranking says that at his best there were only 148 golfers on the planet better than Holman.
That was in March 2016, the week after he teed up in the WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral, an event he earned entry into thanks to his PGA win and one won by his idol, Adam Scott.
But even as far back as that Holman had inklings that perhaps pursuing golf at the top level wasn’t as satisfying as he had always hoped and dreamed.
By his own admission he had lost form. But there was something deeper at play.
What he eventually realised – or perhaps admitted to himself – two years later was that he simply wasn’t interested in the game anymore.
When you’ve devoted your life to pursuing something the way Holman had to golf – and shown you have the tools to compete at the highest levels – that is a confronting realisation to come to.
“I was on a plane to Dallas and I was reading this book about goal setting,” he says.
“One of the exercises was to sit down and write down your goals, what you want to do.
“I was still playing at the time – I was actually going to the US to see Cameron McCormick (Jordan Spieth’s coach) – and I was on the plane for 15 hours so I had a lot of time and I was reading this book.
“So it said to write down your goals. And I started writing. And I couldn’t write down any goals to do with golf. None. “I just didn’t believe in it anymore.” That was the final straw for Holman who had already entertained thoughts his future may not be in pursuing golf full time.
The trip to Dallas had been organised the previous month after he met McCormick at the World Super 6 Perth event and worked with him a bit.
It had gone well and they arranged to meet up three weeks later.
“When I got to Dallas the first thing Cameron asked me was how I was going with the things we’d been working on back in Australia,” he said.
“I can still see his face when I told him I hadn’t touched a club in the interim.”
While he can’t put his finger on a precise moment when taking a break from the game seemed the most feasible option, hindsight clearly shows it was the right decision.
“I’m happy,” he says. “Very happy. And for a long time that wasn’t the case.
“I think I got difficult to deal with because of the frustration. I got hard to work with for those around me like my caddie and my coach.
“And it’s just miserable. You’re miserable to be around. You catch up with family you’re miserable. You see friends – you’re miserable.
“It’s not enjoyable to be miserable but that’s what it was … every day go to work, don’t like work, come home then do it again.
“If you keep forcing yourself to do it you become a bit of a p***k.” And even Holman can see the irony of his next statement.
“It’s the exact same feeling as having a 9-5 job and hating it.”
There’s no single, clear answer for why he lost form, though a nagging wrist injury saw him constantly tinkering with his technique.
In the bigger picture, though, he may have suffered something similar to David Duval. The American famously won The Open in 2001 but soon after began asking himself what ultimately turned out to be a fatal question: “Is that it?”
Holman says he had always dreamed – and believed – that he would one day win one of Australia’s premiere events.
In his mind as a youngster it was always The Australian Masters (“but they cancelled that”) so his focus shifted to the Stonehaven and Kirkwood Cups.
After his playoff win over Harold Varner and Dylan Frittelli at Royal Pines in 2015, a clear focus became more difficult to find.
“That (winning) was always on my radar then afterwards …,” he says, his voice trailing off.
“Golfers do a lot of goal setting and I was never really able to set another goal. You buy into a lot of things but I was never really able to set another goal that I really bought into.
“I had little things like finish top 60 on the Race to Dubai and those sorts of things but they’re generic … I just couldn’t buy into it properly.”
One of the benefits of his 2015 victory and the two-year European Tour exemption that came with it was the financial security to buy a property.
While a quite ordinary part of life for most, it might ultimately have been the catalyst for Holman’s eventual career change.
“I was very proud of the house and stuff and kind of got into it from there,” he says.
“More the design side than the building side. When I decided I wanted to get into the industry I asked a few people and they said in terms of a career, it would be much better to study building as well so that’s what I’m doing.”
Holman now spends his days at the offices of Carter Grange Custom Home Builders in Mulgrave, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, helping customers with quotes for design changes to the company’s range of homes.
He also studies design and building. And attends birthdays and weddings of friends and family. And generally lives like a ‘normal’ person.
“When you play golf for a living you can’t own a dog,” he says by way of example. “Unless you’ve got a partner at home to look after it while you’re away. And again, you’re not really a part of it if that’s what you’re doing.
“You miss weddings because you’ve got events you need to play to keep your card or whatever.
“And not the Masters or US Open but little events in places most people would never bother to travel to. You miss a lot of stuff that most people get to do.”
That’s all changed now though. Well, for the moment at least.
“This year I’ve been to a mate’s wedding in Bali,” he says. “I’ve been to the footy, I’ve done stuff with my dad, done stuff with my mum … all stuff that you can’t do when you’re on the road.
“When it’s good there’s nothing better than professional golf. You’re doing what you want to do and doing well. The satisfaction is extremely high
“You don’t get that same satisfaction working nine to five … if you get away half an hour early that’s as good as it gets. But there are upsides and downsides to both and at the moment I’m really enjoying the upsides of 9 to 5.”
More than once during the conversation Holman has hinted that he isn’t done playing professional golf and, when pressed, admits that is unlikely.
He looks on his present situation as a much-needed break and while non-committal about a return seems to lean towards playing
I SHOT LIKE 6 OR 7-UNDER AND I WAS WONDERING IF I’D MAYBE MADE A MISTAKE. THEN I PLAYED THE NEXT DAY AND SHOT 77 AND REMEMBER THINKING I WAS GLAD I HAD A PROPER JOB TO GO TO MONDAY.
some local tournament golf in coming years.
“I’ve still got status on the Australian Tour for three years,” he says. “I can go back if I want to. Right now I don’t want to.”
The key words in that last sentence are ‘right now’, as he reveals with his very next statement.
“I did see that Kingston Heath is hosting the Australian Open in 2020 and that’s my favourite golf course in Australia, if not the world,” he says. “It would be nice to play that in my home town.”
He won’t be content to just tee up because he’s eligible and shoot 75-75, though. If he’s going to play he’ll need to prepare properly and it is that which is uncertain for now.
“I’m not interested in playing if I can’t be competitive, he says. “But I need to work out if and when and how I will have the time to get ready properly if and when I do decide to play again.
“For now I’ve got other things to do but one day I think I’ll be ready to think about all that.”
Since his last tournament round in March Holman says he has played a few times with friends though hasn’t felt the urge often.
Pleasingly, though, he knows he still has remnants of his game.
“I played two days in a row at Woodlands a couple of months ago,” he says. “The first day I shot like 6 or 7-under and I was wondering if I’d maybe made a mistake.
“Then I played the next day and shot 77 and remember thinking I was glad I had a proper job to go to Monday.”
Regardless of what happens in his future Holman says he is at peace with his golf career. He achieved a childhood dream when he won one of Australia’s big three and proved to himself he could hang, even if it was only for a while, with the best in the world.
He knows there are whispers around the golf world about his change of direction but he isn’t really fussed by it.
“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” he says. “I won a big tournament. Lots of really good players never do that.”
And one gets the feeling that while he is out of sight and out of mind for the moment, the golf public hasn’t yet seen the last of Nathan Holman.