It's the time of season to take stock.
The failure of any Scottish golfer to earn promotion from the European Challenge Tour or gain graduate honours at last week's European Tour qualifying school final has led to the kind of anguished teeth grinding you'd see during medieval amputations. For Alastair Forsyth, at least another season of toil and trouble ended on a high note. The safe arrival of a baby boy, Robbie, on Monday morning saw to that.
Domestic bliss has not been mirrored by job satisfaction, though. After a succession of relatively lean years, Forsyth opted out of the rigours of the qualifying school final this season and has, instead, decided to take a step back in a bid to move forward again.
While he won't be beetling about the streets of Elderslie with 'no job too small' emblazoned on the side of a white van, this golfing handyman is adopting an open approach to potential business.
"If someone phoned up with any suggestions in golf I'd be more than happy to listen," said the two-time European Tour winner. "I'm certainly interested in the coaching side of things while I would be open to some kind of hands-on role in a management company. I've worked with some of the best coaches in the game; I've had a number of years on tour and have been through good and bad and there is a lot of knowledge and experience to pass on."
As a past champion, Forsyth is still exempt into the final of the qualifying school for the next three years. At 38, he is not quite ready to call time on his touring days just yet but he has accepted that his career couldn't continue down the path it was going. "It was a difficult decision to make but there's a bit of relief knowing that I'm not going to be out doing what I've been doing for the last couple of years," reflected Forsyth, who made 10 cuts from 24 tour events in 2014.
"You're sitting on a plane on your own coming home on a Friday night or a Saturday morning, you're shelling out a fortune and it begins to play on your mind. You turn up with no confidence, miss another cut and you have to ask yourself 'wait a minute, is this for me?'
"I've been on tour since I was 23. I love competing and I love trying to make myself better. You have that fire and you don't really lose that. At the moment, though, the tour is not the place for me."
While eager to explore new avenues and opportunities, Forsyth is keen to stay competitive. A return to the home comforts of the Tartan Tour, the domestic circuit he cut his teeth on before winning the European q-school in 1999 and venturing forth, is something that appeals to this family man and father of two.
There will be other bits and pieces coming his way on the Challenge Tour and, as a double winner, the main European scene. "But this will give me time to work on my game, to practise and focus on the faults instead of just playing and hoping it will turn round," he added. "My game hadn't been good enough for too long to justify another go at q-school this year but if I see improvements next season then I'll give it a go."
While Forsyth's place on the European stage will not be replaced by any new Scottish faces in 2015, the Paisley man remains optimistic for the future. In this unpredictable pursuit, there is no E=MC2 formula for churning out champions.
"I spent time with the SGU [Scottish Golf Union] amateurs down in South Africa and there are two or three potential superstars in there," said Forsyth, of a teenage posse that includes the likes of Bradley Neil and Ewen Ferguson. "They are doing the right things. But I look back to when I came through the ranks and there were guys on the Scottish teams, like Steven Young, Euan Little, Michael Brooks and Graham Rankin, that were far, far better golfers than me but never made it on the tour.
"I don't know how or why I made it and others didn't. There's a lot more to it than just hitting a golf ball."
Now there's another task for Forsyth in 2015; lock himself in a laboratory and fathom out the secret to golfing success.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article