Scots golfer Wood hopes something is brewing for talented niece
WHEN it comes to coffee, this correspondent wouldn’t know my arabica from my elbow. Forget about skinny lattes, macchiatos or cappuccinos, my idea of high-brow caffeine culture is watching Gareth Hunt shoogle a few Nescafe beans in his clenched fist during those TV commercials of yore.
Perhaps Scottish golfer turned coffee shop owner, Ed Wood, can enlighten me on all things doppio, lungo and cortado?
“I’m winging it a bit,” chuckled the 41-year-old who rustles up various brews and beverages at his recently opened Old Bank coffee unit in the North Lanarkshire village of Muirhead.
“The opportunity came up and it was one that I thought, ‘This will be a good idea’ but it’s a bit more than just shoving a spoonful of coffee into a jug and mixing it.” To be fair, this
slurping philistine of an interviewer would settle for such an offering.
Wood, of course, is no stranger to giving new things a whirl. Back in 2011, having been made redundant from his day job, Wood, a well-kent figure on the amateur scene, threw caution, and some of his pay-off package, to the wind and joined the professional ranks with the kind of leap of faith that would’ve made
Evel Knievel gasp.
Remarkably, in his very first event on the PGA EuroPro Tour, he was leading going into the final round but suffered the kind of painful crash the aforementioned Evel used to endure and finished with an 82.
Wood would never scale such heights on the pro leaderboards again and the onset of the putting yips brought his career in the paid game to a swift halt.
“My game was shot to bits and I had to get out for my sanity,” reflected Wood, who was re-instated as an amateur and would go on to win the prestigious Cameron
Corbett Vase twice in a row (above).
“I used to be terrified to hit it close to the flag because of those yips. I was almost relieved when I hit it 30 feet away as there was no expectation of holing it. It was a terrible affliction. At least as an amateur, I could cope with it. Golf wasn’t paying the bills so there was a lot less pressure.”
Having dabbled in the frankly terrifying training regimes for the Insane Championship Wrestling Series – he sensibly gave it up for fear of doing himself serious harm – Wood then had a stint as general manager at his home club of Crow Wood. Golf administration, however, proved to be more painful than some of the excruciating positions he’d end up in on the wrestling mat.
“I thought it would be the dream job,” he added. “I tried to implement things but people don’t like change. I took a hump of rough out of the middle of the fairway and you’d think James Braid would’ve been turning in his grave given the negative reaction. It was enough to put you off golf for life.”
A different ball game is giving Wood plenty of reasons to be optimistic, however. His 11-year-old niece, Milena Folic, is a highly
talented tennis player and enjoys summer spells over at the Novak Djokovic Academy in her father’s home city of Belgrade.
Young Milena is not the Emma Raducanu of Airdrie just yet, but Wood is doing his bit to help her reach her full potential. The Springwells Tennis Club in the Lanarkshire town where she plays is undergoing a sizeable refurbishment to improve its facilities and Wood is hauling his niece up Ben Nevis in June as part of a fund-raising drive to help the financial war effort.
“She reminds me of myself when I started playing golf,” he said. “She is totally absorbed in tennis like I was with golf. Like any sport, it requires huge dedication. There’s no reward for half a***d attempts. Milena has those things that are the hardest to teach; drive and discipline.”
It’s not just the coffee shop where something special is brewing.