Wallace Booth has seen his two team mates in the last Scotland team to win a world title fall out of pro golf but is massively motivated to be the exception.
Now 29, Booth won the 2008 World Amateur Championship for Scotland with Gavin Dear and Callum Macaulay, taking the famous Eisenhower Trophy by nine shots over a US side featuring Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel.
Now the Comrie player’s the only one of the three Scots left in the pro game, named yesterday as one of two new players to receive logistical and travel expenses from Scottish Hydro for the new season as he bids to qualify from the Challenge Tour.
In contrast, Macaulay is driving a taxi as he takes a sabbatical from the game while Dear has recently regained his amateur status.
“What has happened to Gavin and Callum motivates me because I don’t want people talking about me negatively as well,” said Booth. “I want to be a success and to be a positive to come out of that story.
“We didn’t just win it; we dominated against a team that had two guys who have gone on to become world beaters and a third (Jamie Lovemark) who has been on and off the PGA Tour.
“I obviously feel sad for Callum and Gav, but I was out injured for two years so I don’t know what they went through, and now I want to provide some positivity and push on.”
Booth rejects the idea that the Scottish game isn’t doing enough to bring more of our young talents through as professionals.
“The SGU do everything right and by the book in terms of the support they give players – I think we just have to step up to the plate and do better,” he said.
“I went to university in the US and they are so positive it’s unbelievable. We look on that as being a bit cringey but it works. Perhaps our negativity has something to do with it.
“But playing and beating the likes of Rickie Fowler should give you confidence. You see these guys you competed against and beat as an amateur and think `if he can do it then I can’.”
Booth feels like he’s got a clean sheet now after two years of injury nightmare caused, he now understands, by overworking in the gym.
““I feel that I am finally starting to progress from where I was as an amateur, but it’s been five years now since I turned pro,” he said. “Those two years were the most miserable of my life, it took ages just to feel comfortable in the gym again.”
That was for someone who had been a gym rat since a young age Dad Wally was a Commonwealth Games medallist at wrestling, and Wallace also wrestled at junior level for Scotland but it took former Dundee HSFP rugby player Barry Jones to get him on the right track.
“What I was doing in the gym was the polar opposite of what you need for golf,” he said. “I still do a bit but it is now golf specific, or aimed at injury prevention.
“The Scottish national coach Ian Rae put me in touch with Barry and he is brilliant. He knows his stuff and between him and my physio in Glasgow they have got me understanding what I can and can’t do.”
Now he also has the benefit of being part of Team Scottish Hydro, eight strong this year with North Queensferry’s Sally Watson, who enjoyed an outstanding debut Ladies European Tour season in 2014, also added to the team.
“It’s just nice to know you can play,” added Booth. “My schedule’s all booked up until June which is a relief.”
Andrew McArthur and Jamie McCleary have been given extra years of backing from Scottish Hydro, McArthur after just missing out on qualification to the main European Tour last year. George Murray, Jack Doherty, Duncan Stewart and Pamela Pretswell who has already won enough from four LET events to retain her card for this season are retained for the class of 2015.