ome

Back in 2018, Matt Wallace was playing some of the best golf of his life, with an intensity, passion and confidence that made him a surefire pick for Thomas Bjørn’s European Ryder Cup team at Le Golf National.

Seven birdies in the last eight holes in the final round of the 2018 Made in Denmark saw the Englishman seal his third DP World Tour title of the year, his fourth in total. Despite that triumph coming just four days before Bjørn named his Captain’s Picks, Ryder Cup veterans Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, Henrik Stenson, and Sergio Garcia were the chosen four to join the Dane’s squad.

Having struggled to find the winning formula since then, Wallace will no doubt be hoping to replicate the golf that put him firmly in the picture in 2018 as he looks to play his way into Luke Donald’s European Ryder Cup team later this season.

“In tournament golf and getting the job done then yes,” replied Wallace when asked if that was the best golf of his career. “If you look back, my scoring was amazing in those areas where I needed it to get over the line and win a tournament. But I wouldn’t say it’s the best golf I’ve ever played – I feel like I’m getting to that point now.

“I’ve improved every single year, even though my scoring hasn’t been as good, but I’m getting better and hopefully I can build on the combination of scoring and playing well. You can play well and not score, it’s all about momentum. If I can put those together then I’ll be playing my best golf.”

Wallace is indeed already in the running this year for a maiden outing at the biennial showpiece, despite Rome 2023 being eight months away. That was evident when he received a call-up to last month’s Hero Cup contested by Great Britain & Ireland and Continental Europe at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.

“It was mega for me to get the call from Luke to let me know I’d be playing in the Hero Cup,” he said.

“I hadn’t been playing how I wanted to, so that was big jolt for me to be a part of that. I was massively hoping I could be there, I wanted to play well enough to get in and Luke showed a lot of faith in me. After we spoke on the phone I told him and Tommy that I would be ready to go at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.”

That readiness to pay back the faith that Donald had shown him was on full display with Wallace banking 2.5 points from a possible four to help GB&I secure victory in the capital.

As well as leaving Abu Dhabi Golf Club with an all-important team event under his belt, the 32-year-old also picked up a bucket-load of inspiration from Ryder Cup greats of the past including Paul McGinley and José María Olazábal. The duo were on site to lend a helping hand after Donald called on the legends to inspire the next generation of European talent by sharing their cherished memories from golf’s greatest contest.

“That chat that we had…that’s why I play the game,” said Wallace, the day after the pair had joined the teams for dinner.

“I was so engaged, I wanted to learn more, listen more and for them to just speak the whole night. For anyone that thought the Hero Cup was just a showcase, it really wasn’t – it meant everything to me. It was the first team event I played as a professional and it was obviously a build up to the biggest tournament we can play in the form of the Ryder Cup.”

Another reason to be inspired for the 2023 season is the fact that Wallace received a major reprieve regarding his PGA Tour status at the back-end of last year.

After a disappointing season stateside, he ended the campaign ranked 136th which left him without his playing privileges for the 2223 season. But after Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Marc Leishman, Cameron Tringale, Harold Varner III and Anirban Lahiri hit their first tee shots at LIV Golf Boston the week after the Tour Championship, Wallace was one of the six to regain PGA Tour status.

With that in mind, Wallace is looking to take advantage of the blessing handed to him by the LIV Golf defectors.

“I’ll probably play a little bit more in America due to the schedule and World Ranking points,” he said.

“I’ve found it’s difficult to play both Tours right now, so I’ve spoken to the hierarchy at the top of the DP World Tour to somehow try and blend it where we can come back a little bit more and play both Tours. I want to support the DP World Tour as much as possible, it’s my home and where I started. But ultimately, you’ve got to be over in America at the moment.” Along with the new-found inspiration, Wallace will also have a new set of clubs in the bag during his road to Rome after deciding to part ways with Callaway.

Having left PING for the brand in 2020, the six-time Alps Tour champion has made the decision to follow in the footsteps of compatriot Matt Fitzpatrick in playing a mixed bag for the foreseeable future.

“I’ve decided to be a free agent and not sign with another manufacturer, so it’s nice to be able to pick and choose what I play with,” he said.

“It’s all about performance for me now, it’s not about signing any sort of monetary contract or being tied into anything. I’ve seen the likes of Matt Fitzpatrick and Adam Scott do it and I’ve never ventured down that route because I thought that signing with a manufacturer is great as they help you out a lot.

“Callaway were brilliant for me, they did everything they could but I just wanted to use a different combination. If I wanted to use Callaway clubs and a Titleist ball then there’s no real contract to be had there, so it was the best decision for me at this time. Who knows in the future what could happen, but right now I think this is going to be bring out the best in my game.

“I’ve currently got a Titleist driver and the Pro V1 19 ball which I last won with. Callaway from 3-wood to pitching wedge, Vokey wedges and a Scotty Cameron putter.”

The qulaification process to make Donald’s team will not be an easy one, with a whole host of fresh faces vying to be in the locker room come September, but if Wallace is to recapture the form that saw him narrowly miss out in 2018 his Ryder Cup dream might just become a reality this time around.

“He also reminded me a lot of Mr (Robert) MacIntyre…,” at this point Mum Cassandra interjects, “You mean Mr McIlroy…” Maya replies: “No, well okay, Mr Macintyre and Mr McIlroy - I played with Mr Macintyre at the Pro-Am for last year’s Ras Al Khaimah Championship, remember?”

Player, McIlroy, Fleetwood, Hovland, DeChambeau, MacIntyre and now Pieters – she’s rubbed shoulders with all of them and played with many of them, such is the attention this talented youngster – born in Ethiopia and brought up in Abu Dhabi by her adoptive, doting parents –has garnered.

Maya’s first brush with fame came when she was a mere seven years old. After winning a nearest to the pin competition with the HSBC Future Falcons programme, she was invited to tee off alongside McIlroy during the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

“We thought it was going to be 30 seconds on the range if we were lucky,” says Maya’s father Stephen. “But it was during the third round, after the pros had teed off they called Maya out, in front of about 400 people, and she hit a tee shot.

“We thought that was it but Maya went and introduced herself to Rory and he came over to me and said, ‘we do a lot of these things and usually it’s the kids of sponsors, but they don’t always have the manners your daughter has, would you mind if she walked the rest of the hole with me?’

“We got to meet his dad, his manager, and it was the start of a relationship. Now whenever he’s back here, Rory makes an effort to check in with Maya and see how she’s doing.”

One of those visits was last year when McIlroy returned for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship’s debut showing at Yas Links. He posed for a picture with Maya in front of the club winner’s board. Why? Because her name is up there. She won the Club Championship in 2021, when she was just 11 years old….in fact she was 10 when the tournament started but celebrated her birthday during the event weekend.

“It was the full Ladies Club Championship, not the junior championship as they didn’t have one of those for girls,” Stephen proudly proclaims.

Last summer Maya won the biggest tournament of her short but eye-catching career when she fired rounds of 72-74-74 in the prestigious US Kids European Championship at Glen Golf Club, just outside Edinburgh in Scotland, to claim victory in the Girls Aged 12 Category.

Later this year, she’ll take another giant leap forward in her journey to fulfilling her ambitions of becoming a tour pro when she tees it up at Augusta National in America’s biggest nationwide skills competition, Drive Chip & Putt. In order to secure her place in the field she had to come through multiple qualifying events in the US, where 10,000 young hopefuls were whittled down to just 40 girls and 40 boys who will compete on the Sunday preceding Masters week in Georgia.

“I’m very excited to go to the Masters, it’s supposed to be really good food there…and an amazing golf course!” smiles Maya.

“My goal is to win, of course. I won’t beat myself down if I don’t win but I’m going to score as many points as possible and give myself a fighting chance.”

As with the Masters Tournament itself, competitors for the Drive, Chip & Putt receive fancy official invites in the mail from Augusta National. Maya’s only arrived in Abu Dhabi the day before the Pro-Am and she resolved to wait to open it at Yas Links, a club that holds a special place in her heart.

“I wanted to wait until I was here to open my letter because this is where I started playing golf,” says Maya. “I started playing when I was five and have been playing at Yas Links ever since. So, to get to open my letter from Augusta here with Mr Pieters with me, and my mum and dad, was very special. I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way!

“It was really HSBC who helped me a lot with the Future Falcons Programme because they had the Swing, Chip and Putt competition, which is very similar to the Drive, Chip and Putt. So, it helped me prepare a lot for playing in the States. It brought me on an amazing golf journey, and got me to this point so I can’t thank them enough.”

One of the UAE’s own – a product of the Emirates Golf Federation, supported by the Abu Dhabi Sports Council, the Dubai Sports Council and HSBC - teeing it up at Augusta in a bone fide top class competition. It truly is the stuff of dreams. Keep an eye out of Maya Palanza Gaudin because I have a feeling she’ll be making us dream of bigger and better things for our very own golfing export for many years to come.

Journalists are lying if they say never feel a tad nervous heading into interviews with superstar names. Perhaps not shivering with worry, but there’s always something at the back of the mind shouting ‘don’t mess this up!’.

That’s exactly how I felt before approaching Olazábal for an interview. I was stood on the range at the Hero Cup watching him stripe it with genuine speed, despite now being in his mid 50s. He wasn’t even playing in the event, but he loves the game enough to still practice at every given opportunity. But why was he really there?

“Luke called Paul McGinley and myself to attend,” said Olazábal when asked about his attendance at the Hero Cup. “He wanted to create the spirit of the Ryder Cup. We wanted to try and explain what it meant to us, and how important it is for us. Also, to tell a couple of stories here and there.”

Following three days of contests at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, it was Continental Europe who claimed victory with a 14.5 – 10.5 victory over Great Britain & Ireland. The score was obviously important, but it was more for gaining experience in the format, team bonding and finding out which players dovetail well ahead of the Ryder Cup in September.

“When we played the same match with a different name (Seve Trophy) it was great for the team,” said Olazábal. “We don’t play match-play all that often during the season so you get to know the players, the players get to know each other. You can maybe see good chemistry between certain players and I think that might help a lot regarding the players playing the Ryder Cup and the Captain knowing the players even better.

“Luke knows really well what he needs to do. I don’t think he needs any advice. He’s been a (Ryder Cup) player many times and he’s been number one in the world. He knows what it takes to play the Ryder Cup and to play match play. In that regard I don’t think he needs any help.”

While the Hero Cup helped supply some much-needed team experience to some younger stalwarts of the DP World Tour, it lacked any real rivalry. The Captains of each side – Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari – are great friends. And while there would have no doubt been nerves teeing it up for your side, the Ryder Cup is a completely different beast. It’s an event which stretches back to 1927 and has staged some of the most memorable moments in the sport including USA’s 19-9 thumping of Europe two years ago in Whistling Straits. “It’s true, the US team is still a very strong team,” added Olazábal. “They proved so the last time around. We’re playing on home soil now though, so hopefully our players will deliver. I have full trust on that, hopefully we’ll win it back.”

Spaniards like Olazábal have been an integral part of Ryder Cup teams in the past and 2023 is likely to follow the same storyline. Many European hopes this year will fall on the shoulders of another player from Spain; Jon Rahm. “We all know how he still continues to battle away at improving his own game. The two-time Masters winner triumphed 23 times on the DP World Tour during his career, and currently sits ninth in the all-time winners’ list. Despite dominance on the circuit, his progression onto the Legends Tour hasn’t been so profitable with his only top ten finish coming at the 2019 WINSTONgolf Senior Open.

“I need to raise my level as I’ve struggled lately, I have to say,” admitted Olazábal. “I took it easy through Christmas and have just started practicing again. The work I’ve started to put in this year has been quite positive. The quality of the shots are improving.” good a player he is,” said Olazábal of his fellow countryman. “He doesn’t stop battling, he’s fantastic. I believe we do have four, five great players at the moment that should make the team. Hopefully we will see some younger generation players raising the level and making the team. European rookies through the years have done pretty well.”

One of those potential fresh faces could be Adri Arnaus. The 28-year-old secured his maiden DP World Tour title last season to catapult himself into the limelight. He failed to make the Hero Cup squad, but he remains firmly inside the top 100 players of the world rankings, so remains in with a chance of making Luke Donald’s side. “He has potential to play and make the team,” said Olazábal. “No question about that. Obviously it’s a long way from here to September. It’s not going to be easy to make that group of 12 players, he’s going to haveto play really, really well.”

While Olazábal will be watching the action unfold in Rome from the sidelines,

Golf is one of the few sports in the world that gives opportunities for senior players to have genuine competition still with considerable prize purses. Just because you’re in your 50s doesn’t mean you can’t compete – or even win.

Think Phil Mickelson at the 2021 PGA Championship aged 50, or how close 59-year-old Tom Watson came to lifting a ninth Major in 2009 at Turnberry just to lose in a play-off. The intensity of life as a touring pro may soften as the years go by with a reduced schedule, but that competitive edge undoubtedly lives on.

“I just love the game,” added Olazábal. “I love practicing. I love the challenge it presents on the driving range and getting on the golf course every day. You just don’t know what’s going to happen regardless of how good you’re striping the ball. I enjoy it. I don’t have to push myself really to come here and practice. It’s something that I do happily. I spend quite a bit of time on the driving range and practicing and don’t see that changing soon.”

Ramsay answered the phone to me while on his freezing cold walk to the gym in Edinburgh. After 15 years as a professional with six high-profile lucrative wins, it would be easy to swap his icy commute to the dumbbells for a night in with Netflix. Instead, the 39-year-old is chasing longevity with hopes that more success is on the horizon following a memorable 2022.

But this sport hasn’t always been kind to the Scotsman. He came within a whisker of claiming the Betfred British Masters last year with his approach shot on the 72nd hole falling into the water. It was still enough to finish in a share of third place and while that may seem like a great result for a player who has endured stretches of mediocre form, it was a genuine nightmare.

“Sometimes the hardest thing is to go from a super high to a super low,” said Ramsay. “The British Masters was pretty much that. I was in tears that night, I have to be honest about it. After quite a while of not winning, it was just one shot. You don’t sleep, you just don’t sleep. It’s not just one night. It carries on for a while. One thing I’m very good at is I’m very resilient. Being a little bit older, I’m not talking about sport, but talking about life, you realise that failure is your biggest learning potential. Once that passed, you sit down and look at it, you try to extract the emotion out of it which is very difficult. I can either use it as fuel and learn from it, or go on a downward spiral that gets out of control to ruin the season.”

That wayward shot at the Belfry wasn’t the only time the Ramsay’s suffered emotional pain inflicted by the game of golf. Life on tour isn’t always the glitz and glamour that we watch on the television every week. The pressure of making the cut is undoubtedly immense when you’re struggling, something which the Aberdonian understands all too well.

“The other low point in my career was when I was starting out in Switzerland,” he continued. “I started off the first round and for some reason, I don’t know why, I walked in the locker room afterwards I was basically in tears. Things weren’t going my way. When you turn pro, there’s quite a lot of pressure on you. I just remember basically sobbing in the corner. I was finding it difficult, things weren’t clicking – off the course as well as on the course.”

While these struggles seem lodged in Ramsay’s memory like cement, his career is still flooded with incredible highs. In 2006, he became the first British golfer for 95 years to win the US Amateur Championship. Since then he’s gone on win four times on the DP World Tour, with his most recent triumph coming at Hillside Golf Club last July.

“You saw my reaction when I holed that putt to win,” said Ramsay. “That was part for my daughter, but part was the British Masters defeat. That was a cool moment. It’s great being at the top of mountain but you’re really tested when you’re at the bottom. It’s really one of those moments when you need good people around you and it’s fortunate that I had that. It was great to get over the line again after a long time.”

Winning again was the result of Ramsay’s hard work in trying to simplify the game after spending a lot of time overcomplicating it. He finished in the top ten for driving accuracy and greens in regulation last year, which is testament to his graft as well as his collaboration with Callaway.

“Sticking to what I know has been important as well as trusting the people around me,” Ramsay responded when asked how he improved last season. “A big thing is trying to be the best that I can be. With social media, it’s very easy to compare yourself and see what others are doing. It’s about trusting the process and trusting my coach, not getting pulled off onto tangents about what other players are doing. It’s very easy to go searching for stuff. You’ve got to realise what you have is really, really good and by making a small but simple change you can increase stats in areas where needed. It can be tiny, tiny gains over one or two rounds but over the course of a season it’s massive.”

Three top ten finishes in 2022 including his attention-grabbing victory at the Cazoo Classic rocketed Ramsay closer to the spotlight for a potential Ryder Cup selection. Still, he has a fight on his hands if he is to topple the host of other Europeans all bidding for a spot in the team. His chances of making Luke Donald’s side are unlikely as it stands, but there’s still a lot of golf to be played from now until the trip to Rome in September.

“If I was honest, I would say there’s a maximum of four spots up for grabs,” said Ramsay. “There’s going to be a fight with some guys needing to prove themselves more than others. I have a couple of things that I think go against me but I have lots of positive stuff. Again, I’ve got to realise what I’ve just done. If you play well against the best players I would think that’s where they are going to measure you so you really need to be in those top tournaments. I’m comfortable on the outside looking in. There are a ton of guys ahead of me. Winning the British Masters would have given me a far better chance but there are two simple words in golf; play better. I need to force them to pick me by playing better in the big tournaments.”

The dust may have just settled on Jumeirah Golf Estates for another year, but it won’t be too long before we’re back watching the best battle it out for the DP World Tour Championship once more. Traditionally it’s a course which has suited the big hitters, with the likes of Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm feeling at home on the track which measures over 7,700 yards. Despite the clear advantage of having huge length off the tee, Ramsay has still enjoyed relative success there. His share of 16th place last year was solid and he appears to have worked out how to navigate his way around the Earth course.

“I definitely want to be back there this year,” added the former Walker Cup player. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the golf course when it started. But I think last year it was hotter than usual in Dubai and the Bermuda (grass) was a nightmare to hit out of so it put a premium on hitting fairways, so straight away I’m like ‘this is great’. I really enjoyed that element.”

The result earned Ramsay a further 156 DP World Tour Rankings which secured him 19th in the season-long standings – his best finish in over a decade on tour. Positive moments like this can only serve as motivation to secure his spot there again this coming November.

“It’s a brilliant time to be in Dubai that time of year with friends and family able to watch you, playing against some of the best players in the world,” he added. “It has all the ingredients to be the showcase and finish the season the way you want to. I do always look at the tournament to aim to get back there. That’s my target.”

Ben, surprised to see you on the driving range in Abu Dhabi – how has that come about?

Well, I retired from football back in September and I think I would have been one of the last people to have been stood on a driving range a few years ago. I’m now really into golf and I played in the Pro-Am at the tournament. I was double nervous on the first tee. I shanked the life out of it left, but I was playing with Shane Lowry. What a guy. These pros that making a living out of it… they’ve just played a round of golf and the first thing they want to do is go straight to driving range to try and perfect that tiny one or two percent they weren’t happy with on the course. Impressive.

Did you pick up any tips off Lowry?

It’s so hard to pick up tips off him. All he does is go straight down the middle with his driver, straight to the pin with his irons, then he puts it straight in the hole. I’m thinking ‘that looks really easy to do’.

But it’s really not. It’s just relentless. He’s persistent, drilling it down the middle. He doesn’t even try and hit it, and it’s going over 300 yards. Just incredible to watch.

How do the nerves compare playing with Lowry to a big football game?

Much worse playing with Shane. So much worse. I know what I’m doing with football. I know how to dive, how to kick it, catch it, pass… All that kind of stuff involved with football comes naturally to me. But golfing, I’ve never tee’d off on the first hole with more than three or four people stood there watching me. With Shane I had only had 20, but Major winner Lowry is one of them! The nerves were there and very real. They probably didn’t even settle down until the fourth or fifth hole.

I’ve heard a rumour you’re playing off a nine handicap after just six months – is that true? Nine is a bit of a tentative one. On Yas Links, I think I’d need a 29 handicap! The greens were scaring the life out of me. Honestly, I’ve never played a course of this calibre before. They were telling me beforehand that the greens were unbelievably fast, even the tee boxes. I was like ‘what?!’. It was such a tough course, with a bit of wind as well. The pros just make it look easy.

Even if it’s a tentative handicap, that’s impressive – how have you managed that? I get obsessive compulsive with things though. If I like something and if I find anything I want to get into, I jump in head first. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve played golf all the way through my professional career as a footballer, but it would have been once every five or six months. Since I retired I’ve had so much more time on my hands, so yeah, boom, golf! The beauty of being a retired footballer is you get to do whatever you want. We’ve got the Cycling GK YouTube channel, the Fozcast Podcast so the Golfing GK channel is here now. Watch out for that, it’s coming soon.

Golf is popular even among footballers still playing now, how come it took you so long to fall in love with it?

I just didn’t have the time to be able to commit to it. I don’t like doing things and doing it half hearted. I wanted to do it and find a way to get better, to do it quickly. That’s just me and my personality. I’ve only really been able to do that since I’ve retired. When you’ve got kids it’s difficult as well.

What’s the strongest part of your game?

My driving can be a bit wayward sometimes, but at Yas Links it was the best part of my game. I can usually hit it fairly long, but more often than not it’s off line. Usually my iron play is the strongest part. It was brutal at Yas Links though. I think opportunity to come out to places like the Middle East and meet people like Lowry – he’s a top man as well – film some content. People want to see that. I wanna see that. All I do is watch YouTube videos like Rick Shiels, Pete Finch and everyone. I like playing golf, I like YouTube, let’s do that. mum and dad were. And the other one would be winning the League Cup with Birmingham City in 2011 against Arsenal. Just the fact that I’m from the Midlands and I knew how much it meant to all the Brummies, along with the fact we were such underdogs. Those were the two standouts for me.

What else did you get up to in the UAE?

We watched Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood on the Thursday of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship for a couple of hours, then after that we played the Trump International in Dubai. Then on Friday, same sort of thing for couple of hours watching the pros, then heading over to play the Majlis.

And how does that compare with the highlight of your golfing career so far? Playing in the Pro-Am was the best day of my ‘golfing career’ so far without a doubt. My skill level is not anywhere near the level it needs to be. It is probably one of the best course I’ll ever play as well.