Golf can be a fickle old game.
One week, you're thundering pearlers out of the screws and peppering the pins with towering irons, the next you're struggling to hit the cow with a banjo let alone the cow's backside.
In the fraught arena of professional golf, the fluctuating fortunes can be enough to drive you round the twist. It's six years since Wallace Booth made the plunge into the choppy waters of the paid ranks after a highly successful stint in the amateur scene but, following a prolonged period on the sidelines caused by a complex shoulder injury and the subsequent spell of rehabilitation, it is only now that he feels equipped to launch his pro career. Yesterday, the 29-year-old was named as one of eight players, both male and female, who will benefit from valuable funding through the Team Scottish Hydro programme this season.
"It is nice that this is the first year that I can plan my schedule and I know what I am going to be playing in right through to the end of June," admitted Booth. "I always felt I would be able to push on and have a good stab at moving up the ladder straight away when I turned pro. Unfortunately, I hit a brick wall and lost two years in my golfing life then another two trying to get it back to where it was."
Booth is receiving this backing for the first time and the Perthshire man is determined to make the most of it. With a considerable financial burden lifted, the former Walker Cup player can focus entirely on an all out assault on the Challenge Tour in 2015 as he strives to climb the European ladder. He has another motivation to perform, of course.
In 2008, Booth, along with amateur team-mates Gavin Dear and Callum Macaulay, had Scotland on top of the world as the trio powered to victory in the Eisenhower Trophy. Wheezing in behind them, some nine shots behind, was an American team featuring Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel. In the years since that conquest, Macaulay has played on the European Tour but has gone back to driving a taxi to make ends meet while Dear, after an unfulfilling stint as a pro, has been re-instated as an amateur. Fowler and Horschel, meanwhile, are PGA Tour winners who sit 13th and 19th in the world respectively. "What has happened to Gavin and Callum motivates me," added Booth. "I want to be a success and I want some positives to come out of the team that won the Eisenhower Trophy. We didn't just win that, we dominated it against a team that had two guys who have gone on to become world beaters. I feel sad for Callum and Gav obviously but I was out for two years so I don't know what they went through, but I want to provide some positivity from that story and push on."
There is no recipe for success, no secret formula for turning amateur dramatics into professional prizes. The question of why so many of Scotland's up and coming players struggle to make the transition from one level to the next is up there with long standing head scratchers like the big bang theory, the meaning of life, cultural relativism and, er, Rangers's chances in the play-offs?
As a graduate of Augusta State University in the US, Booth has looked at golf from both sides now. "In the US they are so positive it's unbelievable," he said. "We have probably been more of a negative country and we look at the American way as being a bit cringe-worthy but it works for them. Obviously, it is a massive country and it's going to have much more chance of producing talent. But they have a feel good factor and a belief which is amazing. Maybe that has something to do with it? The Scottish Golf Union does everything right and by the book in terms of the support it gives players. I think we just have to step up to the plate and do better."
With the support of Team Scottish Hydro, Booth is hoping he can make some significant steps in 2015.
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