DOWN TO EARTH LAD WHO WON £12.50 AT CLUB CURRY NIGHT!
THE morning after the night before and Danny Willet t’s friends at picturesque Rotherham Golf Club were still coming to terms with his stunning victory at the Masters.
They have grown used to seeing him winning tournaments but his three-shot triumph, and £1.2million reward, at Augusta were something else altogether. Not so long ago, they were handing him £12.50 for winning the monthly curry night.
‘It’s a bit of a social event we have one Thursday every month in the summer,’ says club captain Steve Mulligan. ‘We tee off at 5.15pm, play 12 holes and then the catering manager puts a curry on. Danny plays with three or four of his friends who are good golfers and they won. Not only did he win £1.2m for the US Masters, he won £12.50 for Rotherham Golf Club curry night.’
Willett was actually eight under after the 12 holes.
‘That’s a bit silly isn’t it,’ says his childhood friend Ashley Lerigo, Rotherham’s assistant professional. ‘At that rate he would have gone round in 60, maybe even shot the magic 59.’
Lerigo came to work yesterday after half an hour’s sleep. He had been up throughout the night exchanging messages on social media with Willett and their friends who were celebrating with him in Augusta at a hospitality event attended by Sir Alex Ferguson, Alan Shearer and actor James Nesbitt.
They included his caddie Jon Smart and father- in- law Paul Harris. One of the friends had pocketed £22,000 from a bet on the 66-1 outsider and Lerigo landed just short of £2,000. While talking to Sportsmail he receives a text from the new Masters champion in response to a picture of them both in a nightclub some years ago. ‘Ha, ha, love that pic,’ wrote Willett.
‘I spoke to him this morning,’ says Lerigo. ‘He was just exhausted but who can blame him?
‘We’ve played junior golf together since he was 14. He wasn’t the one who stood out, he was a very late bloomer in the game. When he got to 16 or 17, that’s when he really kicked on. He’s just a really likeable character, I’ve always have a laugh with him. On his stag do two years ago we all went to play at Portrush. We went out in Portstewart that night and we got him on stage playing Wonderwall on guitar. It’s the only song he can play!’
In the Centenary Lounge at Rotherham — where Willett is the tour professional and Masters joint runner-up Lee Westwood once held the course record — Willett’s golf bag from the 2007 Walker Cup is displayed in a glass cabinet, together with a picture of him holding the trophy. There is a signed memento from the 2012 BMW International and a single mention on the honours board as winner of the 2007 Scratch Medal.
Half an hour down the road at Birley Wood, where Willett first joined a golf club, there is even less evidence. Just a mention on the final page of the membership handbook of his triumph as a national boys’ champion in 2003 and 2004.
HOWEVER, people still remember him jogging the mile distance uphill from the family home next to Christ Church Hackenthorpe where his father, Steve, was a vicar. Other times, he got the Sheffield Supertram for two stops.
The municipal club, in a workingclass area, is a far cry from the beautifully-kept lawns of Rotherham, and certainly Augusta.
Chris Bethall, Birley Wood’s sales and tuition manager, was a greenkeeper when Willett first joined the club. ‘ What he’s done makes the dream achievable,’ says Bethall. ‘A guy who started at a small municipal golf course and went on to win the Masters. He’s a bit of a practice bunny and he used to spend long hours practising, tearing the course apart and taking chunks out of it. He spent a lot of time working hard and now it’s paid off for the lad.’
Jonathan Pyle, the head professional at Birley Wood, played in amateur tournaments against Willett and Rory McIlroy. ‘ Danny wasn’t like a Tiger or a McIlroy, the next big thing,’ recalls Pyle. ‘He was just a kid who was passionate about golf and worked his backside off to be good.’
Willett’s parents no longer live in the house next to the church at Hackenthorpe, where a rather battered old basketball hoop in the front yard bears testament to his sports-mad upbringing with his three brothers.
They have moved to a farm Danny bought for them in Anglesey where he first swung a golf club in a sheep pasture on family holidays. Willett has made sure there is accommodation for his parents at the back of an old mill he has converted into a luxury four-bedroom property close to Lindrick Golf Club, where he is also a member. Most days, he practises with his coach Mike Walker at the nearby Peter Cowen golf academy.
The 28-year- old was there until the day before his late entry into the Masters, cleared to play after wife Nicole gave birth to their first child, Zachariah.
‘He’d been up most of the night and hadn’t had much sleep,’ says Nick Huby, the academy manager. ‘But he’s one of the most confident people I know. He had a decision to make and it shows his hunger to win.
‘I run the Danny Willett junior competition at Lindrick and he was with us nine days ago. The kids idolise him. A week later, he’s winning the Masters. It’s a bit of a fairytale isn’t it?’