‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s all this then? It’s possibly a phrase you’ve not seen scribbled down in print since Dixon of Dock Green was quoted in The Herald. From the thin blue line to the cut line, it’s all par for the course as far as Michele Thomson is concerned. And if we manage to shoehorn any more ropey references to a bobby on the beat into this intro we might get a call from the scriptwriters of Juliet Bravo.
It’s a different kind of beat Thomson will be striding out on next year, of course. The Ladies European Tour beckons for the Aberdonian, eight years after she made his first tentative steps onto the main circuit. In between, she has served as a policewoman in the Granite City. “I always thought that if I didn’t play golf then the police would be the job I’d do,” said the 28-year-old. “It was another job that involved adrenaline. I don’t think I can do the 9 to 5 routine. It involved everything. Car crashes, sudden death, domestic incidents. It was all very hard hitting. It was a shock to the system but I loved it. Then again, it wasn’t golf. It wasn’t the true dream. I realised golf was my everything.”
This game had been all Thomson had ever known from a very young age. She excelled in it too. A Scottish Ladies Amateur Championship win and an appearance in the Curtis Cup burnished a shimmering cv in the unpaid ranks but the move into the professional scene as a teenager proved to be a sobering experience. “From the team element of the amateur set up I found it all very lonely and I didn’t adapt very well at all,” she reflected. “I was not mature enough to realise how lucky I was to be out on tour. When you’re living out of a suitcase and on your own in hotels, there’s a lot of time for soul searching. I decided to take a break from it all. It was strange because being on the tour was something I’d spent most of my life building up to. I felt a sense of sadness when I realised it wasn’t for me at that time. But taking a step back made me appreciate it even more.”
The competitive fires wouldn’t be doused. Her stint in the police force certainly gave her a new outlook on her life and her golf. If you can handle some of the more effervescent characters on Union Street at chucking out time, then the cut-and-thrust of pro golf will be like a gentle amble down the side of the River Don.
Thomson’s return to action on the Access Series, the second-tier of the Ladies European Tour, in 2014 required patience and mental resolve as she tried to get back up to speed in a tough environment. A maiden win on the circuit in 2015 underlined her talents and a series of consistent showings in 2016 were rewarded with promotion back to the main tour. The second coming was complete.
“When I returned to playing in 2014, I thought I’d come back and be as good as I was before but that wasn’t the case,” she said. “That was quite draining mentally. My scores were quite high and the doubts would creep in. I would ask myself ‘am I good enough to do this?’
“The standard of competition was so high but I kept at it and the feeling when I won in 2015 was fantastic. It had been so long since I had won and in that time I suppose I had fallen out of love with golf for a spell, which can be hard to accept. That love came back. Coming down the stretch that day in Spain, I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs. The adrenaline levels were so high. All those feelings reassured me that I’d made the right decision to give it another go.
“It’s been two-and-a-half years of really hard work and I have to pinch myself that I have a tour card again. It’s just taken a bit longer and a different route but I’ve got there.”
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