WALKING TALL
6ft 9in Thomson beat cancer, now he’s hit the European Tour heights
JONATHAN THOMSON is a 6ft 9in, 19½ stone monument to both the triviality and importance of sport.
He is contented as he sits in the grandeur of Rotherham Golf Club on this cold December day, having achieved his dream of a European Tour card only last month. He shot a 69 in the final round in Tarragona, spain, to take one of the 25 qualifying spots from an original cast of a 1,000 aspirants at Q school. Cue bear hugs and tears with his father Nigel.
Thomson’s distinction runs deeper than being the tallest man ever to hold playing rights on a main tour. His journey to that peak is the story of a remarkable fight for life that dates back to when he was seven and was told he had lymphoblastic leukaemia.
‘ I remember it vividly,’ said Thomson, known as ‘ Jigger’ for his restless energy as a nipper. ‘I was in a private room with mum and dad. The first question I asked was, “Am I going to die?”
‘That was a pretty hard question for them to answer. I wasn’t crying. I think if I was given that news now — aged 21 — I would be sobbing my heart out, but back then I was just bothered about not dying.
‘my parents had got their crying out of the way before breaking the news to me, to be strong and hold it together.’
That diagnosis was delivered on the Tuesday and on the Friday little Jonathan started chemotherapy at sheffield Children’s Hospital, one of the first children on a super-intensive course called Regimen C. For the next five years he was in and out of Ward m3, his mother sarah giving up work to care for him.
‘Chemotherapy is a horrendous thing,’ said Thomson, who earned a reputation as a stubborn boy by refusing to have a blood transfusion no matter what his doctors advised. ‘ It is so bad that nobody can understand what it is truly like unless you have gone through it. And I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. It defies description.
‘The longest period I was in hospital was about three weeks. The chemo had attacked my internal lining so harshly that I had ulcers from my gut to my oesophagus.
‘I couldn’t eat or drink anything. I had a drip for everything. I wasn’t able to speak for about a week.
‘It was the worst time. There were moments when I wanted to die. I was in that much agony, so ill.’
What kept his spirits up — and possibly even kept him alive — was golf. He was already smitten with the sport. ‘ mum and dad talked to me about golf and brought me golf magazines,’ he said. ‘But at times like that it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.’
mostly, he was too ill to go to school — ‘I might have played on that a bit’ — and instead spent time at Rotherham Golf Club, where his father was the steward and is now head of catering, watching and learning from the older children, including the future masters champion Danny Willett.
Thompson sat on a chair and thought to himself: ‘That’s the life I want.’ When he was strong enough he would hit a few balls, and then sit down again to gather his strength.
His talent was soon obvious: aged nine, he won an Under 11s tournament, getting dispensation to use a buggy. At 12, and finally off chemotherapy, he was selected for Yorkshire Under 16s, then England Under 16s and for the seniors while still a teenager. Having left school at 16 with nothing more tangible than what he calls an A* in life, he turned from amateur to pro in september 2016. There were still plenty of ups and downs to come. ‘I was skint for the first few events,’ said Thomson (below). ‘I stayed at the cheapest accommodation I could find. It was hard, but mum and dad supported me in every way they could.’ His break came as the money was running out. His girlfriend Olivia, now a first-year history student at University of York, handed over her earnings from a job at a summer camp nursery to pay the entry fee for the Glenfarclas Open at mar Hall in scotland. He won it and used the £10,000 prize-money to pay off credit card debts. more importantly, the victory brought in sponsorship.
‘When I got my Tour card it was the fulfilment of so many years of trying,’ said Thomson, whose average drive is 320 yards-plus.
‘my aim for the year is to keep my playing rights. That would be an incredible achievement in itself.
‘Then it would be nice one day to win a European Tour event and then maybe a major one day. But that doesn’t happen overnight. I need to work hard and slowly make progress.’
But he is unlikely to lose his sense of proportion, or fail to see sport in its wider context, adding: ‘After beating leukaemia, no matter what goes on in the rest of my life, whether I make it as a golfer or not, I feel proud that I have accomplished something pretty huge.’