tish Hydro so that for the first two years on the Challenge Tour, the finances were covered. I played a full season without worrying about money. I still see it happening now – talented young guys turning pro or about to turn pro, go- ing down paths where they’re just being told yes, yes, yes, instead of hearing hard truths. The most important thing is building a small, tight team of people who care about what you want to achieve and aren’t scared to be honest. I once asked Mike what he wanted to achieve in caddieing. He said, “I want to caddie for a Ryder Cup win and a ma- jor.” I just said, “So do I.” Alignment is everything. A lot of people in golf are in it for the money, and if you throw enough at the wall, something
‘MY DAD WAS A TALENTED ATHLETE – GREAT GOLFER, GOOD FOOTBALLER – BUT HE NEVER HAD THE FINANCIAL BACKING TO CHASE A DREAM.’
sticks. I’ve only got one career and I want to give it everything I can. I’d love to sit down with young Scottish guys coming through and try to guide them. ● ● ● There’s the belief that part of Team Europe’s success in the Ryder Cup is the camaraderie in the locker room. How real is that brotherhood beyond the biennial event? Week to week on tour, you’re not that close. But you’re close enough that guys will go to dinner together when they’re travelling alone. This year Shane Lowry didn’t have his family with him and I didn’t have my team, so we rented a house at Memphis during the FedEx. Europeans will do that with anyone in the group. I feel like Americans have more defined cliques. When I go into the players’ lounge and there are no Europeans, I’ll sit on my own because I’m not as comfortable. If a European is there, it doesn’t matter who it is, Rory, anyone, I’ll go and sit with him. It’s a different culture, and I think that cultural difference is what makes our team gel. ● ● ● How did you manage to play the way you did at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage with all that was going on outside the ropes? The golf the European team played on Friday and Saturday and the putts we holed were outrageous. That Saturday afternoon walking up 18, there was hardly an American fan in sight. We’d been told we couldn’t win, and then it felt like a home event. The only thing I wished for – me and the whole team – was that someone had come out at some point on Sunday and said, enough. Let’s respect the game and respect the players. I’ve never seen so many play- ers in the European team turn around and swear back at the crowd. Shane and Tyrrell (Hatton) and me are probably the kings of shouting and swear- ing on the golf course, but it’s at ourselves, not at anybody. I never realised there were only 37 European golfers who had won a Ryder Cup away from home before that. Now there are 47. I get goosebumps thinking about what we managed to achieve over there. ● ● ● Did that week change how you see Rory? On Saturday on the sixth hole, Rory and Shane’s group stopped and didn’t hit a shot for about 10 minutes. I was in the team room doing some physio and I said, “We need to go out there.” I rounded up about 10 of us – players, cad- dies, staff, so that Rory and Shane weren’t just seeing hostile fans everywhere they looked. Honestly, it was Erica who amazed me most. She was sitting in the back of that buggy like an absolute trooper, not flinching. If she reacted, Rory would have reacted – and if the two of them reacted, the crowd would have won. She was unbelievable. ● ● ● How has rising during the LIV split, one of the most chaotic periods in the sport’s history, shaped you? I voiced my opinion early on, that the money was obscene. How much does a human need? But the more I’ve sat back and thought, I understand why certain guys went. Some timed it beautifully. Some guys I still think made crazy decisions. To each his own.
biggest players in the world and think – I’d take the golf career, absolutely, but I wouldn’t swap any of their lives for mine. Go out for dinner and they get mobbed, photos constantly, videos. That’s not com- fortable for me. I’m a quiet person who likes to go about my business. ● ● ● Not even to the pub? I won’t go to pubs anymore. I was never a big drinker. Only every now and then I’d go with mates for a few beers. I won’t entertain it now and yet part of me thinks, Why not just go? But I feel so uncomfortable. You say the wrong thing, someone catches it on camera, and you think you’re speaking to a friend and you’ve just gone viral. ● ● ● You’re the most visible Scottish golfer in the world now. What type of respon- sibility comes with that? It’s less responsibility and more wanting to show people that it doesn’t matter where you’re from. I was lucky I had parents who worked incredibly hard. My mum had three jobs, my dad had two for a long time, in- cluding as the greenskeeper at my club. It’s how I was able to play the game. My fam- ily sacrificed a lot. My dad was a talented athlete – great golfer, good footballer – but he never had the financial backing to chase a dream. The biggest thing he wanted was to give his children better than what he had. That’s what my parents did for me, and I was just lucky for that. ● ● ● This is the birthplace of golf. Why aren’t there more Scots in the world’s top 150? There’s so much that goes into it. The Scottish guys on tour now are all very dif- ferent – different coaches, different back- grounds, different parts of the country. In the past there were brilliant amateurs com- ing through but it was mostly a one-size- fits-all approach. That didn’t work. When I turned pro, my management company struck a deal with Scottish Golf and Scot-
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 49
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