OF N MA MANY S NT LE TA
G yin pla l sfu ing ces s find e... suc he’ tim and but his g se, fill lon clo ys to ll’s a Wa eto wa ny com nty of tho has An ple eer car
n sto We l ae ch Mi
Anthony Wall knew his time on tour was coming to an end long before an emotional telephone call with his wife prior to the Sicilian Open in 2018, in which they spoke until the early hours. In the Pro-am, he had been “awful” – so bad that he pulled out and never went back.
After 22 years, 519 tournaments and 58 top-ten finishes, he was done. Injuries had caught up with the 42-year-old – serious ones. Enough was enough.
The Londoner enjoyed every minute of his time on tour – except the periods where he would lie on
the floor in excruciating pain. He tasted victory twice. His first title came in 2000 at the Alfred Dunhill Championship, his second 431 events and 16 years later – a European Tour record – at the Paul Lawrie Match Play. Despite being forced to retire, he’s grateful to still be involved in the game as a coach and commentator.
“To drop off the cliff all the way down to doing something completely different would mentally have been quite difficult,” he says, just as he’s preparing for a stint on BBC 5 Live Sport. It’s hard work, but so was hitting hundreds of balls every day. In the end, his ‘old school’ approach did for him. “It takes its toll. I wouldn’t say I was injury prone, but I played a lot of events. I wore myself out. That’s why I have closure. I played more events than most people would ever play,” he says.
The injuries were bad. In 2013, it was his left hip. By trying to protect that, he would lean on his right foot, which led to another surgery – this time to remove a bone in his ankle. As painful as it was, it was nothing compared to the emotional trauma of discovering a tumour in his stomach “the size of a satsuma” the following year.
“It was awful. You could see it sticking out of me,” says Wall, wincing. “I’d just got back from having my hip done and rehab and all of a sudden I thought I was back at square one. I felt like I didn’t want to have another six months off.”
The tumour turned out to be benign, something he didn’t know as he continued to battle for his card – which took most of the season. “Stupidly I let it go and I shouldn’t have done,” adds Wall, whose decision to delay going under the knife did not impress the surgeon. “It was a strange couple of years, but I think in experiences like that you learn a lot about yourself. We made that decision, rightly or wrongly, and we came through it as a family.”
There was no coming back from a back injury three years later. Prior to the Italian Open in 2017, he collapsed on the putting green and needed a series of injections just to make it home. He battled on, but the pain was mounting and at the Hassan Trophy in Morocco the following year, he played his last ever round on the European Tour. Eighty painful blows – and he withdrew.
“I was in such a mess,” he says. “It was constant. Golf was secondary and I was taking a lot of medication. It got to the point where I thought, you know what, I just don’t want to do this anymore. My nerve was great and I was hitting the ball well, but I just couldn’t play the game I loved. I really couldn’t face having a year out with surgery wondering whether I’d ever be able to do it again.”
A love for the game
Wall’s love affair with the game started when he hit balls around a local park. He moved to Royal Ascot and from there to Foxhills. When he was 15, he joined Sunningdale. He worked ten hours a day, waiting on tables and then in an off-licence. During breaks, he’d whack balls – bucket after bucket of them. He coached himself and learned on the job.
“Nick Faldo was always practising at Sunningdale and I would watch,” Wall recalls. “When I was 16, I played with Frank Nobilo, Sam Torrance, Barry Lane and Tony Johnstone. It was an unbelievable experience because you put them up so high. Nowadays, a 16-year-old wouldn’t be that fussed about it. Television has changed so much that they know all about them anyway.”
Wall found himself getting a touch nostalgic during a tidy up at
home recently. Over the years he’s accumulated quite a collection of international jumpers. There were no Walker Cups, but he has fond memories of his amateur career. He was Surrey champion in 1992 and ’95, and course knowledge helped him win the prestigious Sunningdale Foursomes in ’94, when he triumphed alongside Steve Webster. The following year, he realised his dream when he decided to turn professional.
“It’s funny, you look back and think you had these lulls, but when I was sorting through all my things, I realised something good was always happening, which I needed to keep me going,” he says. “Golf is hard. It’s the only game where you get beat up every week. At least with tennis, football and snooker you might win a few rounds, whereas with golf there’s one winner and the rest get dumped. That’s something you have to learn to deal with.”
Wall managed this well enough during his 20-plus years on tour, something he attributes to hard work – it was the key to his longevity. His best year came in 2006, when he finished runner-up on three occasions and tied 11th at The Open. Often, he’d come up against someone who just played that little bit better – or, as he jokes, “there always seemed to be a Stephen Dodd or Colin Montgomerie who’d just come along and beat you by a couple.”
“The winning’s a bizarre one because I never felt overly nervous. When I had a chance, I felt like I wasn’t too bad at it,” says Wall, who upset the odds when beating Alex Noren in the final of the Paul Lawrie Match Play at Archerfield Links in 2016. “Fridays never bothered me. I didn’t mind being on the cut line. I always embraced that challenge. I wasn’t frightened.”
Wall does harbour one or two regrets – he’ll admit that. Not pushing on enough when he had the chance is one. “Sometimes you hold on to what you have rather than expressing yourself more,” he explains. “In the era I was in, you had guys like Lee Westwood and Monty who were winning multiple times a season, so it felt like you had fewer chances. That’s an observation, not really an excuse, although there’s no question there were events I should have won.”
He also wishes he’d had a bit more guidance during his career, especially at the start. A couple of lessons with Pete Cowen once worked wonders, although it’s a different kind of help he’s referring to. “I lived on my ability and my hard work,” he says. “I would have loved to have had someone in those early days telling me how it was, but everyone was so guarded.”
Lending his expertise
The 45-year-old is now putting his experience to good use. In teaming up with talented Englishman Jack Singh Brar, he’s not just providing technical advice; he’s also a mentor – and he has a lot to offer.
“Jack’s a cracker of a kid,” says Wall. “He’s very organised. He’s not afraid of getting in the car to go and work on something. He’s so efficient in his practice. He never hits a shot without reason. If he doesn’t do it properly, he doesn’t hit one, whereas I would just stand there hitting 8-iron after 8-iron. The new breed is always looking to improve something.
“I felt like I was in a good place to give advice. There’s always going to be that role for the coach, but they don’t tend to drift as far away from where they should be as they used to. When I went out, I was proper raw. I don’t see that so much anymore. They can all play. So I think there’s also a role for someone who’s done stuff in the game, to guide them through the other matters that go with being a professional golfer.”
Alongside coaching, Wall has made a smooth transition into commentary work. On the course, he manages to watch his old friends go about their business without longing to be back out there in the heat of competition himself – well, most of the time at least. When you’ve spent roughly half your life on tour, the odd craving to tee it up is to be expected.
“I’ve enjoyed getting out on the golf course and I’ve learned a lot,” he says. “Before, I never really watched the golf because I was too busy worrying about my own game. When I’m commentating, I see players out there and think ‘I’d love to spend an hour working on this with them’.”
Well, now he can, and he’s only too happy to help. Nothing is more rewarding, not even the gardening.
“In golf there’s one winner and the rest get dumped. That’s something you have to learn to deal with”