‘The rest of the world has caught up with us and now we have got to address it’
SCOTTISH golfers rarely need any encouragement to view the glass as being half-empty. As the country which invented possibly the most infuriating sport known to all of mankind, a mood of unrestrained dourness is generally par for the course in clubhouses across the country. Some voices, though, hold far more sway than others. When it happens to be a two-time European Tour winner and one of the most successful players this country has produced over recent times voicing his concern, we would be well advised to take note. For the second consecutive season, no Scottish player was able to progress from European Tour Final Qualifying School, which will again leave Scott Jamieson as the youngest card-holder from these shores at 32 years old. With not one Tour member in his 20s, it is a fairly desperate situation and one which Alastair Forsyth warns is only going to become progressively more difficult to rectify. ‘It’s disappointing, obviously, but I honestly don’t see it as a huge surprise,’ said the 39-year-old. ‘The worrying thing is that it’s actually only going to get harder and harder, year after year. ‘The standard of the game is so good nowadays that every country seems to be producing a world-class player. The talent pool across the world now is so wide and so deep. ‘It’s not true to say we don’t produce good golfers in Scotland anymore. We do still produce good players, but the level of competition has increased astronomically. ‘Back when I turned pro in 1999, there was only one Englishman in the top 100, which was Lee Westwood. Now there’s probably a dozen and you could say the same about a lot of countries. ‘The whole dynamic has changed. If you go back in history, the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Seve Ballesteros — they were all way ahead of their rivals, but I’m not sure it’s like that anymore. ‘Yeah, you have the likes of Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth who can be phenomenally good on their day — but you could name another 20 guys who can be just as good if they are on form. ‘The number of really elite-level players has increased. Our players are just as good as they ever were — but the rest of the world has caught up with us and we need to address it. ‘We’re also a small country with terrible weather from October right through till March. That puts us behind the eight-ball right away.’ Looking at the season just past in 2015, it would be difficult to argue with Forsyth’s view that Scotland does still produce amateur players of world-class ability. The team of Ewen Ferguson, Grant Forrest, Greig Marchbank, Jack McDonald, Connor Syme and Graeme Robertson were crowned European champions back in July. Ferguson, Forrest and McDonald then went on to star in the Walker Cup as Team Europe thumped their American counterparts 16.5 – 9.5 at Royal Lytham in September. Go back a few years further to the Scottish World Championship-winning team of Callum Macaulay, Gavin Dear and Wallace Booth in 2008, who won the Eisenhower Trophy with a magnificent performance to beat an American team which Ricky Fowler and Billy Horschel were a part of. Michael Stewart won both the Scottish and South African Amateur titles inside the space of 12 months in 2010 and 2011. Stewart then partnered fellow Scot James Byrne to another Walker Cup success over the USA in 2011, yet both players are still to make any serious impact in the professional ranks. Forsyth believes, however, it is what many of these players do in their first season after they leave the amateur ranks that is causing so many to fall by the wayside. ‘I think your first season after you turn pro is genuinely the most important of your career,’ he said. ‘That’s where things are breaking down at the moment and where so many of our guys are falling away. ‘I think back to when I got my card back in 1999. I got on a flight to South Africa and I don’t mind admitting it — I was absolutely clueless about what I was doing. ‘I had no idea where I was going, where I would stay, how to make my way to the course, who my caddy was — absolutely nothing. ‘But I was lucky because I got in with a really good crowd of Scottish guys who were already on Tour. The likes of Paul Lawrie, Dean Robertson, Gary Orr, Stevie Gallacher — those guys helped me so much and I’ve a hell of a lot to thank them for. ‘We would get together regularly and just mess about as young guys do. I don’t think young guys nowadays work like that. They all seem to cut themselves off with their physios, psychologists, coaches and whatever else. ‘The system that Scottish Golf offers them certainly isn’t the problem — far from it. ‘We had three Scottish lads in the Walker Cup team this year, which I don’t ever remember happening before. So here’s hoping that the current crop can really make their mark once they start mixing it as pros.’
The system Scottish Golf offers isn’t the problem