Apart from the sentence ‘I see Donald Trump is set to unveil his nuclear weapons policy’ there are not many phrases that can send shudders down the spine quite like ‘the qualifying school final’. It’s that time of the year again when golf’s so-called torture chamber swings into action with all the grisly menace of a medieval executioner. Tears and triumphs, agonies and ecstasies, hurrahs and heartbreaks? It’s just like a normal day on The Herald’s sports desk to be honest.
While many of the combatants will be approaching this weekend’s nerve-shredding, tormenting trudge with all the enthusiasm of condemned men shuffling towards the gallows, Bradley Neil is approaching the 108-hole inquisition with bubbly buoyancy. Since turning professional in the summer of 2015, the 20-year-old has not had much to shout about. In 24 events on both the Challenge Tour and the European Tour, he’s made just five cuts. The qualifying school process, though, has offered some soothing salvation. In September he won the stage one shoot-out in Austria. Last weekend, with the pressure on, he closed with a 66 to haul himself up into the top-10 and secure a passage through to the final.
“Given how the last year-and-a-half has gone, that was the most important round of golf in my pro career,” he reflected. “There was a lot at stake. If I missed out, I would have had minimum starts on the Challenge Tour and would be going back to the EuroPro Tour. Now I’m going for my full tour card. I seem to have done the opposite of what some golfers do at q-school. They’ll play well until they get to q-school and falter under the pressure. I’ve not played well in events but have gone to q-school and performed when it matters.”
At just 18 two years ago, Neil won the Amateur Championship and enjoyed all the spin-offs that it brings. He played in the Open, the Masters and the US Open. The professional game was the inevitable step but finding his feet has been as treacherous as trying to balance on one of those damp, shoogly, moss-ridden stones. He’s not the first, and certainly won’t be the last, to find the transition tricky. Having signed with a management company which also looks after the affairs of Tiger Woods and Justin Rose, Neil doesn’t have to look far for encouraging pearls of wisdom. “Justin has been fantastic with me,” said Neil. “He’s so wise. He went through a lot when he turned pro and missed his first 21 cuts. My own manager grew up with Justin and went through the turmoil of pro golf with a friend. I feel they both can relate to me. As soon as I got through stage two I got a message from Justin saying: ‘that’s more like the Bradley I’ve played golf with’. Having someone like that in my corner is great for me.”
Having taken up all the rewards that came from winning the unpaid game’s blue riband event, Neil eventually made the move into the professional scene when he wasn’t playing particularly well. “I don’t regret turning pro when I did because the opportunities being offered to me in terms of invitations to events were substantial,” he said. “But I just didn’t have any momentum. When you come out on tour and start by missing cuts then you feel you are out of your depth. People start asking ‘what’s wrong, what are you doing?’ There are so many more voices coming in from all angles and it’s hard. After six months, folk were saying I should change the coach who had helped me to get to where I was in the first place. There seemed to be a panic but I didn’t want to go down the route of the quick fix.
“I’d keep looking at it and say ‘things will be ok’. Other days I’d ask myself ‘have I done the right thing by turning pro?’ But you have to get through that. The doubts in your head can really get in the way and harm your progress. I think I’ve got over that now.”
In the ruthless, unforgiving cut-and-thrust of the professional game, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Neil is still just a young man of 20 who is finding his way in a tough old business.
“I know my game hasn’t been good and I’d love to change how things have gone but it’s developing and I’m developing as a person too,” he said. “I expected better of myself but I’m now in a much better place, technically and mentally, as I was when I first turned pro.”
If he can negotiate the perils of the qualifying school final and earn a tour card, Neil could be in an even better place.
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