All photography provided by Gary Evans & Getty Images

Having turned professional after The Walker Cup in 1991, I entered The European Tour School. At the final stage, I managed to finish in tied 2nd place out of 180 competitors and with the top 25 gaining their card, so began my Life on The European Tour…

1992 - 1995

Having won my card at the end of 1991, I signed with IMG and embarked on what many thought would be a successful Professional career. I ended a solid amateur career by becoming the first amateur golfer to win the English Strokeplay Championship (Brabazon Trophy) and the Lytham Trophy in both 1990 and 1991. At that time, I honestly felt that I had the game to compete and possibly win on the European Tour. I signed with PING as a staff player, but back in those days, they invested $5m into the pot and it was you against all the other PING pros (on a ranking system). You got paid out at the end of the year dependent upon wherever you finished on that list! These days, kids turning professional get signed for hundreds of thousands of pounds (some even millions if their amateur careers and reputation was high enough!

I started out with £2,000 of savings, earned by stacking shelves in Safeways on the nightshift. My first trip was to Thailand for the Johnnie Walker Classic and to Dubai for the Desert Classic. The cost of the trip was just under £2,000, so no pressure there then! I made the cut in Bangkok, then missed the cut in Dubai…return on investment…circa £2,000.

The next four events were all in Spain and I finished 2nd, 8th and 48th and 9th ..prize money won, circa £55,000.

A couple of months later, having worked with John Simpson at IMG, I got my first (and only) dream clothing contract with Hugo Boss. It was a two year deal, which was to begin the week of The Volvo PGA Championships at Wentworth. I finished 4th and my Father (who had been diagnosed with cancer), was there to witness my first big tournament finish.

A couple of months later, I had the lead with 4 holes to play at The Dutch Open. I was paired with Greg Norman on Saturday, we both shot 71 and we were paired again in the last round. I finished bogey, bogey, bogey, birdie to miss a play-off by 1 shot and finished 3rd. I was gutted. I sat in the changing room, tears in my eyes and Greg Norman getting changed next to me never said a word. No encouragement, no “well played, they’ll be another time kid” I got absolutely nothing. It was then that I realised that the best players weren’t interested in anyone but themselves. Looking for sympathy was not on the agenda, so grow up quick kid was my mindset. It was the end of July, I was lying 13th in the Order of Merit without a win but I was certain that the “W” was just around the corner.

A month later, my career took a turn for the worst. At the Murphy’s English Open at The Belfry. It was very wet, I was plugged in the greenside trap left of the par 3, 7th hole. I got steep as you need to be with a plugged lie and I drove down into the sand and heard a large “crack”…I’d hit a large rock underneath the ball and felt a sharp pain in my left wrist. From that point on, my life changed. I was leading the Rookie of the Year by a country mile but I was forced to take a month off under Doctors orders.

The long and the short of it was this…when I returned to golf, I simply had no game. My hand hurt like hell. My good friend and long term England amateur foursomes partner Jim Payne had played really well whilst I was out injured. He eventually caught up and overtook me on the Order of Merit and I ended up losing the Rookie title by a couple of thousand pounds. Losing the Rookie of the Year title wasn’t in the script that I’d created for myself. I ended my first season 35th on the Order of Merit but that was as good as it was going to get for the next decade!

I continued to seek help from Doctors and Specialists but none of them could be specific as to what the problem with my wrist was. I was told it was Tendonitis, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, weak wrists…everything but an accurate diagnosis. So for the next two years, my game just got progressively worse and that mixed with the loss of my best friend, my father, in October of 1993, mentally I was very low.

1993 - Order of Merit - 67th

1994 - Order of Merit - 90th

At the end of 1994, I finally found someone who could tell me what my wrist problem was. A local Dr referred me to Professor John Stanley who was based out of Wrightington Hospital in Wigan. He reviewed my X-rays and examined the movement of my wrist and subsequently gave me the news that every golfer fears most. “You have been playing golf with a broken wrist but that’s not the worst of the news… the break is in an unusual place. You’ve snapped the Triquetrum bone off and it’s floating and striking your Ulna nerve, which is the issue causing you so much pain. If I try and wire the bone back to its original position, you’ll get movement up and down or left and right but I cannot give you both…given what golfers need to do with their wrists, I’m not sure how I can help you!”

I sat there in his office at Wrightington Hospital in Wigan crying my eyes out. All the years of self sacrifice, hard work, dedication, effort and support from my close friends, all gone in a moment. I was devastated. He said, “Look, go home and let me think about this and I’ll revert in a few weeks time.” Those two weeks felt like a lifetime but he did call some ten days later and asked me to revisit his practice. I did and this is what he said….

“Gary, as I mentioned previously, I cannot wire your wrist back together. As you’re now aware, your Triquetrum bones is floating out of it position and striking your Ulna nerve. What I’m thinking as a potential solution hasn’t been done before either! My plan is to drill a small hole in the Triquetrum bone, splicing a piece of tendon off of the main tendon that runs from your arm into your hand, needling that splice of tendon through the floating bone and re-attaching the tendon to the main tendon. If it works, it will potentially stop the Triquetrum bone from striking the Ulna... BUT as I said…I’ve never performed such a surgery. This is a hypothetical solution, which may enable you to play golf again but to be honest, there’s only a 50/50 chance of success”! Imagine hearing those words at 25 years of age and your career hinging on the one option!

Needless to say, I had no option! I accepted the surgery. It was carried out in the Autumn of 1994 and by March 1995, I was hitting my first shots. What a man! I will forever be grateful to Professor Stanley for thinking outside of the box and coming up with solution. It was scary, really scary hitting my first shots.

What became immediately evident was that I had to change from a standard 2 knuckle left hand grip to a 4 knuckle grip. That was the starting point of the long road to find my game again. After a pathetic attempt to play the 1995 season and only managing 10 starts, I applied for a medical exemption, which was granted.

1996-2001

The next six years were simply horrible. I hated my golf swing. I’d lost the ability to hit shots like I used to and along with it all, the confidence that I’d had built up both prior to turning professional and during my first 6 months on Tour, I found it extremely difficult to compete. It was ugly and it was deeply depressing.

1996 - Order of Merit - 97th

1997 - Order of Merit - 99th

1998 - Order of Merit - 94th

1999 - Order of Merit - 42nd

2000 - Order of Merit - 87th

2001 - Order of Merit - 57th

2002-2006

At the end of 2001 and after a 6 year marriage, I got divorced and fell into a horrible depression. I’m sure I was horrible to be around. I’d lost my wife, my children, my home and ended up with about £8,000 and an old car. I moved into a one bed apartment above a wine bar and basically went on the piss for 5 months. It was messy, very messy. Eventually, just after my birthday in February of 2002, a close friend of mine took me to one side and gave me some simple options.

He said, “you can keep feeling sorry for yourself, drown yourself in drink and become a bum or you can stop acting like a loser, stop drinking, get fit and work your bollocks off and start living again… You have the ability and the talent but it won’t happen unless you apply yourself. It’s your call! It was the just the kind of straight talking that I needed. I stopped drinking, got fit and worked my ass off and literally, within a month, my game picked up and the results started to come in.

Dubai Desert Classic - 5th

French Open - 9th

Volvo PGA - 15th

British Masters - 5th

Irish Open - 13th

The Open 5th

The Dutch Open 10th

The Scandinavian Masters - 6th

The German Masters - 6th

The American Express World Golf Championship - 15th

That year I won over £750,000 and finished 21st in the Order of Merit. Finally, after a decade of struggling, I finally started to show a little bit of what I was capable of. It was such an incredible time and I’ll forever be grateful to my friend for the much needed bollocking that he gave me.

In 2003, I managed to continue where I left off in 2002.

Heineken Classic - 4th

Qatar Masters - 8th

Spanish Open - 6th

European Open - 4th

Scottish Open - 5th

The Open - 10th

BMW International - 3rd

The Dutch Open - 6th

I’d turned my life around with the help of a few close friends and a lot of hard work. I ended 2003 finishing 30th in the Order of Merit but disappointedly, once again I’d failed to win a golf tournament. I now owned a home, a car, some furniture and life was looking up.

2004 was the start of the end of me. I was getting a serious pain in my right shoulder, which eventually necessitated surgery in the August of 2004, I ended up playing only 19 events in 2004 (which was a good 10 tournaments shy of what I’d normally play in a year). Whilst I’d won enough money to keep my card and finishing 77th in the Order of Merit, the downturn in my mind was crippling. He we go again, another hurdle to jump.

I’d enjoyed a brief period of quality golf in 2002 and 2003 but all too quickly, circumstances both physically and mentally took over, and sadly, there was no recovery from the ensuing depression that took place. I half heartedly had a go at playing in 2005 and played only 10 events. Once again I was given a medical exemption and tried to play the 2006 season, but to be very honest, less than a third of the way through that final year, I knew that my number was up and I just wanted the pain to stop and to quit.

2006 - Order of Merit - 167th

All in all, I look back at my time on The European Tour with mixed emotions. I’d followed my dream and for a few short moments, I felt on top of the World. I’d played alongside my childhood heroes, Seve, Woosie, Langer, Lyle, Faldo, Olazabal, Couples, Faxon and a few others. I’d come close to knocking off The Open Championship in 2002 and my last 3 Major Championship finishes were 5th, 10th 20th (which is not to be sniffed at). I’d travelled the World, played on some of the most incredible golf courses and had some unbelievable experiences but ultimately, I’d failed. I hadn’t proven myself against my colleagues. I hadn’t won a Tournament. I failed because mentally I wasn’t strong enough to keep picking myself up from the ground every time I fell. I’m not ashamed of that fact. I’m human, but life carried on and I found other things to concentrate on for the next 14 years before I turned 50.