Paul Gallagher on one man's rare journey from high-handicap teen to aspiring European Tour professional
Perhaps Tiger Woods' emotional British Open victory is still fresh in the memory and you've headed out for a round with mates to try to emulate your idols from Hoylake. Your handicap might even exceed your age and never in your wildest dreams have you thought that one day you'll play with the big boys in the professional ranks. Well, that's exactly what Simon Thornton, the dominant player on the Irish PGA circuit, has achieved.
From taking up golf seriously only 12 years ago as a 17-year-old with a handicap of 18, yesterday's victory in the Ballyliffin Pro-am - his fourth victory of the season - brought the Yorkshireman back to the top of the PGA Order of Merit. The winner in 2005, he has been vying for the top spot all season with European Tour player Damien McGrane,
"Sometimes it feels like I'm living my dream," beams the 29-year-old from Bradford, who is now married and living in Dundrum, Co Down.
"Believe me, my wife, Ciara, keeps reminding me: 'What you do is not a job, getting to play golf for a living. Not a lot of people get that chance in life to do what they want to in terms of work'.
In 2005, Thornton collected no fewer than six wins on the Irish circuit en route to the order of merit title. The two most prestigious were the Irish PGA Club Professionals Championship and the PGA Ulster Championship.
The previous year he won four pro-ams, a format used for the majority of events on the domestic circuit.
This season the Englishman had topped the early standings after three wins and another 15 top-10 finishes, but had recently been overtaken by McGrane who won two events on the bounce.
First the Meath pro landed the Dundrum House Pro-Am after rounds of 71 and 68, with fellow European Tour player Gary Murphy fourth and Thornton tied sixth alongside Philip Walton, among others. Days later, McGrane shot a blistering, eight-under 62 to win the Curragh Pro-Am by a single shot from Thornton, suggesting this particular order of merit race could to go to the wire.
Rounds of 71 and 70 at Ballyliffin for a three-under-par 141 aggregate earned him a two-shot victory over Robert Giles and Michael Collins. The £4,600 winner's cheque brought his winnings for the season to £24,737 - with one point for each pound earned, his points tally is also 24,737.00, ahead of McGrane's 22,075.00 from five events. (The figures are in sterling, as the Irish PGA operates under the aegis of the PGA based at The Belfry in Britain.)
McGrane, like Murphy, has only played a handful of events this season, usually on off-weeks from the main tour.
That said, Thornton still faces regular high-calibre opposition every time he tees it up around the country. Walton, the 1995 Ryder Cup hero, is eighth in the standings and competes regularly after losing his tour card last year.
Another Irish Ryder Cup hero, Eamon Darcy, is 36th on the order of merit as he mixes it between the European Senior Tour and occasional events in Ireland, just as do Jimmy Heggarty and Hugh Jackson.
And that's not to mention the presence of prolific PGA winners such as Damian Mooney, John Dwyer and Leslie Walker.
HOW HE ARRIVED at this juncture in his career is the real interest here, and in revealing the road he has travelled, Thornton also illustrates the benefits both of being in the right place at the right time and of putting in a lot of hard work on the range, particularly over the last three years.
"I only took the game up seriously at 17 when I joined my local Huddersfield Golf Club and got my first handicap of 18," Thornton recalls.
"Up to then the only time I had played was a bit of pitch and putt on family holidays or the odd nine holes with mates after school.
"After my first summer at Huddersfield I quickly got down to an 11-handicap before enrolling at DeMontfort University (part of Leicester University on the Lincoln Campus).
"The truth is I didn't get the grades I needed at A-level, so the only course of interest I could get onto was Golf and Leisure Management, with a view to changing to leisure management rather than the golf side of it. However, when I'd seen the lads on the course who were single figure, category one players, that's when I started to take the game more seriously."
The next golfing signpost for Thornton came in the summer of 1996 when he arrived at Royal County Down to work in the professional shop under Kevan Whitson.
"That was when it all kick-started properly for me," notes Thornton. "By that stage I was down to a handicap of seven and was playing a lot of golf with the assistant professionals at RCD in the evenings after we closed the shop.
"Following a full summer playing golf, I returned home to finish my course and had got myself down to four and was thinking I can actually play this game," he added. But he still had no aspirations of turning pro.
"After completing my course I was back in Newcastle the following summer (1997), and at this point one of the assistants left the shop so a trainee vacancy became available. Kevan said: 'Do you want to start full-time, turn pro, and take your PGA exams?' So, the decision was made for me really, I wasn't going to turn that opportunity down."
By 2002, Thornton had completed his PGA exams, and his "breakthrough win" came at the PGA Assistants' Championship at Charlesland in Greystones.
"I had travelled down with one of the other assistants, Colin McElderry, more to get time away from the shop than anything else, but I ended up winning and that really was my breakthrough win."
Earlier that year he had already won when he got a late call-up to the Fred Daly Balmoral Pro-Am and finished joint-first.
ANYONE WHO plays the game will know how difficult it is to come down a single shot on one's handicap, never mind come tumbling down from 18. To then have the cheek to think about turning pro showed real determination and character.
"To be honest, the game came very naturally to me. I hit the ball well off the tee and my long irons were good," revealed Thornton, before adding that he played many sports well: he captained the school rugby and cricket teams and could turn his hand to other sports.
"Generally, I was always able to stand up and get the ball off the tee and be in play. But it was a case of the closer I got to the hole the worse I got, because I was pretty poor at chipping, pitching and putting, so, most of my work focused on the short game," explains Thornton, whose speedy progress was made under the guidance of Whitson, whom he still works with.
"First of all, Kevan changed me from an interlocking to an overlapping grip. After that it was a case of dealing with a few fundamentals in my address position, because I think I have quite a simple, natural swing, not too technical. From there I put in a lot of really hard work myself, particularly in the last three years."
Thornton suggests what he lacked in the short game department was probably down to taking up the game so late and missing out on those early days when many kids simply play for hours on end around the practice putting areas because they are too young to get on to the golf course.
"Getting the ball from A to B was never the problem for me, it was from 100 yards in that I needed to focus on because I didn't have the touch.
"To this day that's still the key focus, as that's where scores are made. I still spend hours on those six-foot putts and pitching from close range. If I want to take my game to the next level I need to treat practice like any nine--to-five job and put the hours in."
Speaking of the next level, Thornton hopes to take his upwardly mobile curve to the European Tour Qualifying School later this year.
"The next stage for me is basically to try to win the order of merit here in Ireland again, then attend Tour School to try to win a card. Not wanting to sound big-headed but I believe I have the game to compete at that level and a place on the European or Challenge Tour is definitely within my reach."
Thornton has had several tastes of life on the main tour, most recently when he made the cut in the European Open at The K Club. Although he ended up finishing well down the field, he felt comfortable in such illustrious company. On the second day he was five under at one point and scoring the best of anyone in the field. However, three bogeys on the way home meant shooting 70, but that was still only three worse than Stephen Browne's best-of-the-day 67.
He also noted the need to be extremely fit, both mentally and physically, for a life on tour, especially when playing four tournament rounds instead of the normal two as the pros on the Irish circuit tend to.
Thornton has no official sponsorship and that can be difficult, particularly in winter when his playing season ends. It's clear to see from the Irish order of merit standings that prize money alone certainly isn't going to be enough to retire on.
"It is pretty tight, I have to say. At the moment I get €5,000 from Team Ireland, which is a great help, but otherwise the prize money - or some funds from teaching - just go straight back into the kitty. Thankfully, Ciara pays most of the mortgage at the moment, it's that sort of relationship. Team Thornton we call it!"
He then reveals that a couple of investors showed sponsorship interest but he was almost holding them back, taking the view that it would be better to wait for when and if he makes it on to the main tour, as that's when he "will really need proper sponsorship to help with all the added costs".
Des he have any regrets not taking the game up earlier? "Hindsight is a wonderful thing and in some ways I do regret it. Had I taken the game up earlier I might have been playing on the European Tour by now, who knows? In other ways I don't regret it, things happen for a reason and moving to Ireland certainly opened a new chapter.
"All I know is, when I was a child my mum used to say 'what do you want to do?' I said 'I want to do sport'. 'What do you mean do sport, do you want to teach it?' 'No, I want to play', whether it was rugby, cricket, golf whatever. The point is I always wanted to do it rather than just standing on the sidelines teaching or coaching.
"I sometimes used the fact that I started so late as an excuse, but now I've caught up. Many tour pros peak in their 30s and 40s. If so, maybe there's 10 good years left for me."
Time will tell.
