He had given up golf for painting and decorating but Mark Davis’s second career in the game launched in impressive fashion with his SSE Scottish Senior Open win at St Andrews.
The Essex man figured Scotland owed him one after he suffered a wrist injury in 2000 that curtailed his spell on the European Tour and made him take up the paintbrush and roller to make ends meet.
Yet the former Austrian Open champion, only 50 at the beginning of last month and playing just his third event on the Senior Tour, got back atop the rostrum with a hugely impressive performance in the high winds over the Torrance Course at Fairmont St Andrews.
Davis was the only man left in the field under-par with a five-under aggregate of 211 after as many as 40 had been in red figures after the first day in flat calm on Friday.
His 71 on Sunday was one of only three scores under par as winds gusted to 35mph on top of the cliffs overlooking St Andrews, and gave him a five-shot victory over a group of four players.
“It feels the same to win, it felt great to feel the pressure on the final day with the lead,” he said.
“I only realised that I was ahead when I looked at the scoreboard on the 16th and was a bit amazed to see the nearest to me was one-under.”
It was in Scotland at the Scottish PGA Championship at Gleneagles in 2000 that Davis suffered his wrist injury, hitting a tree root at the fifth hole on what was then still the Monarch’s Course.
“I played on that season hurt, couldn’t get the form back and the next year lost my card, and that seemed to be it for me,” he said.
“I tried teaching but it wasn’t for me so I ended up painting and decorating for a living. I still played my PGA East region events but I hadn’t played competitively at this kind of level for 12 years until a month ago.”
Knowing he had an exemption to play on the Senior Tour after his 50th birthday by virtue of his two Austrian Open wins on the main tour in 1991 and 1994, he spent two months gearing up before Sunday’s breakthrough.
“I was taking things as they come and thinking about still doing a bit of the decorating business in the winter, but I’ll definitely go back to full-time golf in the summer now,” he said.
“When I hit the ball as well as I did today it gives me huge confidence. The aim is to go and play on the Champions Tour in America if it all continues to work out, and I’ll not have to pick up the paintbrush again!”
Davis three-putted the first to make him think his putting troubles of Saturday’s 74 were returning, but he was three-under for the next 14 holes, fantastic work in the brutally tough conditions that had almost everyone else sliding.
Cesar Monasterio, the Argentine who led after an 11-under 61 in Friday’s flat calm, still led by three heading into yesterday’s round but five bogeys and a quadruple bogey eight at the 14th sent him tumbling to a 79.
He managed to hang on for a share of second place with David J Russell, the veteran Englishman long based at Archerfield in East Lothian, another Englishman in Phil Golding and Spain’s Pedro Linhart.
Top Scottish finisher was the long-exiled Gordon Manson, St Andrews-born but based for the last 30 years in Austria, who finished in a share of sixth, six shots back.
“I always seem to play pretty well here and it must be because I’ve got a view of the Auld Toun on every shot,” he said.
“Today was tough for everyone, and three-foot putts were a real battle with the ball moving around so much. They didn’t cut the greens last night and watered them this morning and if they hadn’t have done that, I don’t see how we could have played.”