‘It is hard to believe what has happened in the past year’
Rising star Matt Wallace tells James Corrigan about the winning streak that has catapulted him to US Open
which began at the Pyramids Open in Egypt will mean Wallace clambers ever close to the top of the apex when he plays alongside the golfing pharaohs at Erin Hills. In less than two years he has gone from 1,156th in the world into the top 150.
Wallace is a confident type, but acknowledges the unlikelihood of it all.
“Yes, if you had told me at the start of last year that I’d win five times in a row, win on the European Tour and be in the US Open, I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said. “Especially where I had been a few years before.”
In 2014, Wallace was ready to give up on up his dream. A good but by no means great amateur, he had been signed up to the paid ranks for a couple of seasons, but had soon noticed he was stuck in that everswelling rank which does all the paying.
“It’s hard going, and I started to think of where I was going to be when I was 30,” he said. “I didn’t want to turn my back on the game, or even on playing, so I sent my CV off to a few of the big agencies – IMG, ISM – to try to move into golf management. Fortunately nothing came of it.”
Except, Wallace is on the books of ISM now. If good golf travels, then news of a quintet – on any tour, in any setting – tends to rival the sound barrier in its haste in reaching the right eardrums. Chubby Chandler, the larger-than-life guru to Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke and Danny Willett among others, moved in and met his new prodigy for a pep talk at Wentworth during the 2016 BMW PGA Championship.
“Chubby sat there and told me that I would be playing in that event next year,” Wallace said. “I was obviously