JUNO BEACH, FLORIDA | It was eight years ago when Trevor Foster wrestled with a nervous breakdown.
Foster, who was 55 at the time, was coming to the end of a 40-year stint working at Accrington Golf Club, a hilly layout about 25 miles north of Manchester, England. He began playing at the club as a teenager before becoming an assistant professional at the raw age of 16. Foster eventually spent most of his tenure as the club’s head greenkeeper – a greenkeeper who was a good enough player to qualify for the 1988 Open Championship and compete for Lancashire county, winning both the Lancashire Open and Amateur tournaments. He took the title in his club championship and Northern Counties Order of Merit more than a dozen times each, stacking local victories with ease.
But in 2015, Foster thought his golf career might be finished. A labral tear in his long-bothersome left hip sent him into crutches for 45 weeks. At the end of that suffering, he had to get a false hip installed and went back to the crutches once again.
Foster once again was pulled into a riptide of depression and anxiety, a mental struggle with which he has grappled throughout most of his life. He retired from his post at Accrington and wondered whether the golf course still could be his shelter from anguish.
“I just thought my golf career was over, and I knew that was my life,” Foster told Global Golf Post. “I’ve suffered with depression and anxiety for 30 years, but when I got on the golf course, I was like a different man. The golf course was my freedom. It was a bit Jekyll and Hyde. There was my real life, and there was my golf life. When I walked on a golf course, I just felt more positive.
“I knew if I lost my golf and I was struggling, I would be in trouble.”
But Foster swam against the current and made his way back to shore. The new hip gave him pain-free golf and, with a little encouragement, he ventured into the senior amateur golf scene where he not only has been a smashing success on the course but has made massive strides in relieving his internal warfare away from the links.
His game reached a new level when he started working with coach Ryan Done, who at 14 was Foster’s caddie during that ‘88 Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. At the 2018 British Senior Amateur, Foster stunned everyone when he shot a 9-under 63 in the opening round at Royal Porthcawl to take a seven-stroke lead; he cruised to the title for a nine-shot victory. Earlier that year, Foster rallied from five strokes down to capture the Irish Senior Amateur.
He has built on that tremendous play in recent seasons. In 2022, he won the English Senior Stroke Play by once again racing out to a substantial lead and then holding off challengers. And for the second consecutive year, he was the low amateur in the Senior Open Championship as he made the cut against the pros. (The first time Foster qualified for the major, he kindly thanked his hip surgeon, John Hodgkinson, by letting him caddie in a practice round.) Foster was also a key member of the European squad in the Concession Cup, and those players have become very close. Last week when several Europeans, including Foster, competed for the first time in the Coleman Invitational at Seminole Golf Club, they began their week by playing together at the Concession Club in Bradenton, Florida.
Described as a steady player who relies on his short game acumen rather than overpowering golf courses, Foster is the emotional core of that European senior amateur group. Although he qualified for that Open Championship at the age of 28 – and he briefly led the tournament through the first 12 holes, getting to see his name above eventual winner Seve Ballesteros – his recent accomplishments are as good as it gets among his peers.
“He is really the leading player for our generation of senior British golfers,” said fellow Concession Cup participant Rupert Kellock.
Stephen Jensen, another close friend in the group, noted how Foster galvanized his fellow teammates off the course in addition to his strong play: “When he gets talking – and Trevor can talk – he is the belle of the ball, telling all sorts of stories.”
But amidst Foster’s remarkable senior amateur golf success and his undeniable comfort on the course, he is open about the dark places he has been. When asked to identify the source of his depression, Foster isn’t quite sure. He calls the mental illness, which can arrive in intense spurts for months at a time, his “cloak of lead.” It’s a burden, a sudden heaviness that forces him into an unspeakable solitude so unlike the man holding court in the clubhouse.
“ ... when I told some of my closest friends, I felt a weight lifted. They wanted to help me. I started telling more people, and I got better.”
Trevor Foster
Foster had mostly kept this to himself throughout his life. He was rotting with anxiety. Sometimes it was more humorous, such as in the ‘88 Open when he stood at the sign-in sheet for practice rounds and nervously contemplated whether he should put his name next to that of his golfing hero, Jack Nicklaus. He didn’t do it, which is “a regret I’ll take to my grave”, he said. (Later when he had the chance to play with Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Padraig Harrington and others in the Senior Open Championship, he didn’t hesitate.)
But Foster’s anxiety manifested itself in a more serious isolation. He started seeing a therapist during his 2015 struggles and learned that sharing his pain was paramount to getting a hold on the depression.
“My therapist said to me, ‘You’ve got to start telling people that you have depression,’” Foster said. “And I said, ‘I can’t do that. I’m an amateur golfer, and it will show weakness.’ But I did, and when I told some of my closest friends, I felt a weight lifted. They wanted to help me. I started telling more people, and I got better.”
His golf friends understood, even if Foster’s thick northern English accent gives them trouble. Kellock and Jensen have been on the receiving end of phone calls where Foster is trying to sort through his burden. Both were adamant that Foster’s wife, Debbie, who worked in catering at Accrington alongside her husband and is a brilliant caddie with excellent knowledge of the game, has guided Foster through the toughest of times.
“Just like his short game is his rock, Debbie is his rock off the course,” Kellock said. “I think he would be in a lot worse of a place without her. She has pulled him out of some dark times.”
As a concerned friend, Jensen worries how Foster, now 63, will handle life when competitive golf is no longer a part of his routine. “He lives for that adrenaline rush in competition,” Jensen said. “If you took golf and Debbie away from him, I’m not sure how he would handle that.”
But Jensen then is quick to point out Foster has relished being a parent and grandparent. His daughter, Nikki, is a strong golfer who, in 2011, qualified for what is now known as the AIG Women’s Open at Carnoustie. It was believed that Foster and his daughter were the first father-daughter amateur duo to play in both a men’s and women’s Open Championship. And Foster is equally proud of his son, Ryan, who is a good player in his own right and now has a career as a lighting engineer for ITV in the U.K.
On his wrist, Foster has tattooed the names of his grandchildren.
“He’s a man of incredible family values,” Jensen said. “He would step out in front of a train for his wife, kids and grandchildren.”
They’ve all carried him through, but golf has carried him through as well. The game showed him a way forward.
“It's very easy to lie in your bed all day and not want to get up,” Foster said. “And believe me, I’ve done that. There have been times when I’m going down the first fairway and I've actually wondered whether I can manage to get it around that day. But then I just think to myself that I have to stay positive. You can train yourself to be positive. It was so hard at first, but you have to keep trying. And I’ve found that I’m more positive now when I’m not at the course, too.
“And now that I’ve really gotten better, I’ve helped a lot of people, and I enjoy that part. I get more satisfaction doing things for other people than myself.”
If there is a lesson to take from Foster’s story, maybe it is this: No matter how poorly you feel or what you are going through – even if it feels as though you are the only one in the world going through it – you are not singular in those struggles.
There is a way out. And sometimes the path is lined with fairways and greens.
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