The European Tour absolutely HATE when golf journalists refer to any of their players as “journeymen”. The reaction is often if it was the worst possible insult in golf.
It is, admittedly, a lazy term for those players who habitually make their career around the bottom 50 to 70 places in the Race to Dubai. The guys who never quite win but make money, hold their cards, build themselves a decent career perhaps “the Survivors” is a better term.
I’ve never had a problem with the description of journeymen as most I know show up on time and do a decent job with the minimum of fuss. And this certainly describes Scotland’s David Drysdale.
“Double D” holed a monster putt on the final green at the Perth International at the weekend, securing his playing rights for 2015 with his final stroke of the season. In fact he could have two-putted and still made it, but it was a decent final flourish.
David’s 2014 season hasn’t been that untypical of his entire career a couple of top tens and about a quarter of million euro in winnings. Perhaps the fact that he finished 103rd out of 110 qualifiers for 2015 tour cards is more evidence of the rise in quality of the European Tour.
Drysdale’s never won he has two second place finishes and only once finished in the top 50 on the Order of Merit.
His weekend escape means he’s retained his playing rights for seven consecutive years, but if that’s not indication enough of his status as a Survivor you have to appreciate what he went through before.
David went to Q School ten times up until 2008. He made it through that ordeal twice, qualified off the Challenge Tour another time, and his 2005 season was perhaps the most excruciating possible losing his tour card by just £461.50, and then failing to qualify from Q School by a single shot.
Remembering that, you don’t begrudge him a penny of his career winnings, now standing at over £3 million.
All this from pretty humble beginnings as a teenager behind the pro shop counter at Dunbar. David, like Chris Doak and Craig Lee two more admirable Survivors came off the domestic PGA Tartan Tour circuit, rather than straight from the amateur ranks.
Of course Paul Lawrie, who has done a wee bit more than just be a Survivor, came via that route as well.
It makes one ponder when listening to the Scottish Golf Union performance officials at a meeting in Edinburgh last week. It’s been a great year for them with Bradley Neil’s Amateur Championship victor, Grant Forrest winning the biggest strokeplay event, the St Andrews Links Trophy and other fine performances.
Yet Steve Paulding, the performance manager and Andrew Coltart, the former Ryder Cup player who is a consultant to the SGU, were still almost scathing about the attitudes of some of their young charges.
Both quoted a sense of entitlement, “we know better” arrogance and an astonishing disregard for the services provided by the Union for them in areas such as nutrition, physiotherapy and statistical back-up.
Coltart, in particular, appeared almost incensed by this flagrant attitude to advantages he would have run through a brick wall to have available to him when he was starting out in his career.
Would these “entitled” players listen to Drysdale, Doak or Lee? Probably not, as they clearly have aspirations beyond being one of The Survivors, no matter if their ambitions are not grounded in reality.
Which is a shame. Out of literally scores of highly touted and nurtured players, the straight-from-amateur route has produced just four Scottish tour winners in recent times in Stevie Gallacher, Marc Warren, Richie Ramsay and Scott Jamieson.
And even those guys had to be Survivors for at least a while. As Drysdale has proven, it’s at least a way of making a good living, and much more than the majority can expect to enjoy in their careers.
*So farewell Ted Bishop. It’s astonishing how quickly the President of the PGA of America went from being “a breath of fresh air” to a pariah, wiped from the record books and effectively a non-person.
His incredibly misjudged tweet last week, calling Ian Poulter a “l’il girl”, led to his impeachment, meaning he won’t even get invited to Ryder Cups in the future. That’ll be the most galling thing for Ted, who clearly thought he cut a good figure in team gear at Gleneagles.
During his presidency Bishop tried desperately to raise the profile of the PGA of America, clearly to to entrench their sole ownership of the US side of the Ryder Cup and the fourth major as more and more people question why they are entitled to such lucrative prizes.
Initially, his public soundings not least tweaking the nose of the R&A about a few things tickled the fancy of many.
But it was bluster most of the time, and he seemed bound to overreach himself. By the time he did, helped by his ham-fisted “personal appointment” of Tom Watson as US captain for Gleneagles, the novelty had worn off into contempt.