Scale of the task now apparent to young Lewis

CADDIE'S ROLE:My man is finding it tough at the moment but Peter Lawrie found time for a kind word

WHEN YOU play golf for a living you have to keep telling yourself as you drag your clubs out of another airport on a Monday afternoon that this could be “the” week. This may be the week when all those previous weeks of disappointment and heartache make it all worthwhile. This could be the seven days that get your career back on the path that you had hoped for and everyone else expected to be paved as a matter of course.

By Friday afternoon that sense of hope may well have been shattered and the weary and dejected traipse once again through the airport for yet another early departure seems to have become the norm.

Tom Lewis, my young and very talented professional, is suffering the hardship of the early exit these days in his quest to realise the potential he clearly possesses but is struggling to find a way of releasing at the moment on the fairways of Europe.

On the Castle Stuart course east of Inverness near the Scottish Highlands, the conditions were as benign as you could possibly hope for on the Moray Firth. With wide fairways and soft greens everyone understood before a shot had been hit in the first round that it was going to be a low cut.

This was the type of course for a flagging young golfer to rediscover his grá for the game and get some of his competitive mojo back.

So by the time the neeps and tatties were being dished up in the caddie-shack for lunch on Thursday it looked like the hope that had been dragged up to Northern Scotland had been quashed by another weak opening round and it was going to be yet another long-shot of a low second round simply to make the cut.

Many people had forewarned that victory had perhaps come a bit too quickly for such a novice after Tom’s outstanding win in Portugal in October of last year in only his third outing as a professional. I listened to the premonitions but didn’t really believe them given the talent and quiet confidence of the young Tom Lewis.

Naturally, with early success comes increased expectation and aspiration to repeat the stunning feat over and over each week you play. It is really tough to win a golf tournament, a lot of things have to go your way in order for it to happen. They are unlikely to go your way each week you tee it up.

The chances are that the ideal may happen a few times a year and you hope that the stars aren’t equally aligned for success for a fellow competitor at the same time.

The reality is the mundane slog most weeks of grinding out a score in order to shimmy up the rankings list slowly. The catapult to the top was a short-lived reality for Tom to start and now he is living the nightmare of such a heady rise to fame.

The professional game is a journey when plotted on a graph chart which usually progresses at a steady rate upwards, with some plateaus and dips along the line.

But each player is different. Our own Shane Lowry shot to stardom on the European Tour with a victory in the Irish Open at Baltray as an amateur in 2009. When he subsequently turned pro the reality of life on tour became apparent. Despite the grooming of top amateurs there is a huge step up from amateur to the professional life. It took Shane a year to figure out how it all worked and he has since improved his position on tour. It is important for any young professional to remember that the two-year exemption for winning on tour is more important than any pay-cheque received. Only rookie winners earn this invaluable learning period.

As ever after an ordinary round, players either storm home in disgust or spend the rest of the day on the range partly punishing themselves and at times genuinely trying to work on something that will get them through the cut the next day.

As Thursday afternoon progressed there were two players left on the otherwise barren Castle Stuart range; Tom Lewis and Paul Casey, with whom we played a practice round on Tuesday. Casey had shot a worse round than Tom’s one-over par. He had sent urgently for his coach Peter Kostis from America to come over to try to give the flagging former consistent top-10 player in the world a bit of hope.

Tom had hit some poor chips and pitches during his round. It is an area he has been struggling with of late. We decided to work on one particular shot he had executed poorly on the 16th hole. He hit the shot perfectly on the range. He closed his eyes and hit the shot perfectly. He took his left hand off the club and kept his eyes shut and hit the shot perfectly. He raised his left leg, kept his eyes closed and his left hand off the club and still hit the shot perfectly. Top players’ natural talent is astounding.

But once you start to doubt yourself, no matter how gifted you are, you are in a dark place with a scorecard in your hand. As we prepared buoyantly for our second round knowing that the least we could shoot was five under in order to make the cut, Peter Lawrie came over for a chat having just completed his second round and lying comfortably on nine under par.

Tom had been candid in a newspaper article earlier in the week, admitting he was doubting himself. Peter, being the gentleman that he is, could not have timed his motivational speech any better.

He told Tom he was a class act and that he himself recalled losing in a play-off the first year he played on tour. He admitted, in hindsight, it was the best thing that happened to him.

We didn’t make the cut again last week. Life is a little tough for my man Lewis going into the second half of his maiden year on tour. He is experiencing a little correction at the moment. It is the nature of the game.

The empathy and support caring colleagues like Lawrie offer a young player such as Tom is an invaluable reminder compassion does exist in an often ruthless and cut-throat profession.