I’ve beaten Spieth, but my biggest pay cheque is £28,500
SENIOR STILL HOPING TO MAKE THE BIG TIME
ASKED to name the English golfers who inflicted the two most stinging defeats in Jordan Spieth’s career to date, any sports fan would easily get Danny Willett at the Masters last year.
But the other? Now here’s a story you will not have heard before.
It happened at the 2011 US Amateur Championship at Erin Hills, which just happens to be the venue for this week’s US Open. Spieth was playing in his last Amateur before turning professional and was desperate to add the title to his US Junior Championship.
But he could not get past a gritty Lancastrian by the name of Jack Senior, who followed up his victory over Spieth’s great mate Justin Thomas with a matchplay quarter-final triumph over the Texan on the final hole.
You might well ask: where is Senior now? While the two American multi-millionaires will return to Wisconsin with seriously realistic hopes of creating much happier memories, the man who beat them will be playing in France on Europe’s Challenge Tour for a far more modest reward.
While Spieth, Thomas and the rest are competing for a total prize fund of £9.5million at the US Open, where the winner will receive £1.75m, Senior will hope to make enough from a total purse of £170,000 to turn a profit.
Between them, Spieth and Thomas have already banked more than 20 seven- figure cheques. Senior’s biggest career prize to date is £28,500.
It is easy to think of tournament golf as the land of milk and considerable honey, but that is because the highest strata is usually the only one written about. Senior’s story is more typical, a man ranked among the world’s top 10 amateurs when he turned pro but, six years later, the 28-year-old is still waiting for his big break.
‘People have this perception that pro golf is a glamorous world whatever level you play but there’s not much glamour on the Challenge Tour,’ Senior said.
‘Not that I’m complaining. I’m doing what I always wanted to do — and I still believe I’ll make it to the European Tour.’
In 2011, there did not seem much doubt of that as he beat Thomas with a brilliant putting display and then fought a belter against Spieth, where there was never more than a hole in it.
‘It was one of those nip and tuck matches and, fortunately for me, Jordan bogeyed the last and I got a par to win,’ Senior said. ‘You could tell, though, he was the full package. My brother Joe, who is also a pro, was caddying for me and we just looked at each other at the end and agreed we had beaten a future world No 1.
‘I remember reading a piece his caddie Michael Greller wrote after Jordan lost the Masters last year, and he said it was his most bitter defeat since I beat him at the Amateur.’
Two weeks after that matchday, Spieth and Senior met again at the Walker Cup, where Spieth came out on top although Senior was part of the winning team as Britain and Ireland pulled off a shock victory.
Senior contributed two foursomes points alongside Andy Sullivan, another who has gone on to big things.
The difficult question Senior must have asked himself a thousand times is why he has not joined the illustrious trio on the glamour circuit.
‘For a start you have to acknowledge they’re top players who do everything right,’ he said. ‘But it’s also a fine line. Look at Tyrrell Hatton, who was playing on the Challenge Tour three years ago and is now in the world’s top 20. Look at Matt Wallace, who was on the Alps Tour last year and has now won on the European Tour and is playing in the US Open. So is Aaron Rai, another Challenge Tour player.
‘That’s the thing about this game, you never know what’s around the corner or when you’ll get the right breaks. And while it’s a source of great pride looking back, I do want to be remembered for something more than the guy who beat Jordan Spieth at Erin Hills.’
Sky Sports will show the US Open as part of a summer of sport that includes the Lions Tour of New Zealand, the ICC Champions Trophy and The Open.