SANDWICH, ENGLAND | The Cinque Ports were an 11th century confederation of five English coastal towns granted special privileges and responsibilities by the English crown in exchange for providing ships and men for the Royal Navy. They were, in effect, Britain’s first line of defence.
In last week’s Amateur Championship, hosted by Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich (one of those five towns) and Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club in Deal (named after the quintet), that line was breached – in golfing terms, at least.
For the first time since 1981, and probably for the first time ever (the online records, alas, are incomplete), there was not one mainland British representative in the final four of the amateur game’s most prestigious European tournament.
A week that started with a few raised eyebrows at the presence of participants from nations as unlikely as Pakistan, Vietnam and Romania ended with even more solid evidence that the amateur game at the elite level has never been more global.
As a case in point, there were eight Estonians playing last week and the highest finisher of them, 20-year-old Richard Teder (who reached the last eight for the second time in three years), is one of six youngsters who have transformed the life of a veteran golf coach with a background every bit as eclectic as the field.
David Da Silva was born in Mozambique, brought up in South Africa, has lived in the United States, and his brother, Daniel, was the first Portuguese winner on the European Tour (in the 1992 Jersey Open).
Da Silva himself married a Finn and set up an academy on the outskirts of Helsinki. Ten years ago he noticed that six boys from Estonia were making regular appearances in his booths.
“I get emotional just thinking about it,” he told GGP. “I remember them coming over on the ferry from (the Estonian capital) Tallinn to Helsinki in the winter. It was dark and snowing, and they’d woken at 2 in the morning to arrive at the academy early on a Saturday morning. They would travel with one parent every time, they’d work on their golf all weekend, and return in the dark on Sunday evening. They’d do that two, three times a month during the winter.
“I could see their work ethic. I could see their spirit. They saw golf as an opportunity. They were pioneers for Estonian golf. And I thought, ‘I’m going to help them.’”
Teder was wooed by U.S. colleges but Da Silva was reluctant to let him go because he considered it a poor fit for his personality. He had no qualms about the others, however, and they have crossed the Atlantic, pleasing their parents by earning academic qualifications as well as furthering their golfing education.
What began as an informal setup with the six has grown into a formal arrangement with the Estonian Golf Federation. “They asked me for help three years ago and I created an eight-point plan for them,” Da Silva explained.
“I said if they could commit to a four-year period, I’d take it on and they’ve been as good as their word. For example, we’ve started a junior tour. In the first event we had 30 kids. The last one, we had 150. We had no indoor facility so they invested a lot of money in a state-of-the-art centre in the middle of Tallinn and it’s got everything.
“We’ve got a [HotelPlanner Tour] event coming to Estonia next year, guaranteed for three years. That will be huge for us and it’s an amazing opportunity for those boys.
“The Estonian Federation tends to look at Finland which is bigger and more established, but I keep reminding them that being smaller makes us more mobile. We can make decisions quicker. We’ve just got to be sharp and focused.
“It’s tough out there. Austria has just invested €5 million in an elite golf centre. The French have one, the Italians have one, the Spanish do, the Portuguese do. That’s what we’re competing with. It’s tough, but these boys,” Da Silva gives another emotional little nod, “these boys will give it a good go.”
Talking of the French, they, too, had no golfer in the semi-finals but that is where comparisons with England, Scotland and Wales ended. Four of the top eight qualifiers from the stroke-play section were from across the Channel and so, too, were two of the quarterfinalists.
Callixte Alzas was one of the latter, losing out to the eventual championship winner, the American Ethan Fang, by two holes in the last eight. The 17-year-old in theory plays out of the St Cloud club in Paris, a parkland layout with extensive views across the capital city towards the Eiffel Tower, but in reality he is connected to the French Golf Federation academy, based at Le Golf National, and his life reveals the new reality of being a hot-housed young talent.
Alzas studies academically, as well as on the golf course, at the 2018 Ryder Cup venue, living on-site from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon and he has been there since he was 13. After completing another year he will cross the Atlantic to study at the University of California, Berkeley.
That, however, is in the long term. In the short term he left Royal St George’s baffled about your correspondent’s French and hoping that he and his teammates could maintain their form in the European Amateur Team Championship later this summer.
Six years ago the Amateur Championship was played at Portmarnock, 10 miles north of Dublin, Ireland. The Women’s Amateur Championship was played there 12 months ago and in recent times there have been whispers that the R&A would like to host an Open on its links.
Last week the R&A’s new chief executive, Mark Darbon, spoke to the Associated Press about the idea of taking golf’s oldest major outside of the United Kingdom.
“We’re serious,” he said. “It’s clearly a great course and we think if we’re happy taking our Amateur Championships there, why not consider it for the Open, too?”
Would taking the Open to the Republic of Ireland create the possibility of it going around the globe, he was asked. “The simple answer is ‘no,’ it wouldn’t open up our thinking more broadly. If you go back in history, the home territory of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is the British Isles, basically.”
But, he added: “We think if we’ve got this great history with the Republic of Ireland and its great golf course, then why not look at it?”
Present all last week was Royal St George’s member Nic Brook, one of golf’s great enthusiasts. Also a member at Royal Liverpool and Royal Blackheath, Brook is a sub-editor at the Daily Mirror and began his career in the media working for Golf Illustrated magazine.
As we took in the action on the 18th green on Friday, I wondered if the pin position was the same as during the final round in the 1985 Open, when eventual winner Sandy Lyle’s first chip rolled back to his feet. “My first Open,” said Brook.
Not, however, his most memorable. That came three years later when he accompanied the photographer Phil Sheldon throughout one of the Open’s great final rounds – a three-way duel between Severiano Ballesteros, Nick Price and Nick Faldo at Royal Lytham & St Annes.
Brook can be seen in the background of many of the images taken of Ballesteros after he executed his sensational greenside chip shot to secure triumph that year. He’s one of the many faces gasping in astonishment as the ball grazed the edge of the hole. What a thrill to have not only been present at such a moment, but to have it immortalised in print.
Not that Brook makes a fuss. He tends to celebrate others rather than himself. One such example is his friend Trevor Homer, an English golfer who was somewhat reticent about competing in the Amateur Championship at the height of his game in the 1970s.
Despite being a little dubious about his links skills, Homer entered the 1972 championship at Royal St George’s and defied appalling weather to complete victory. Two years later he was defying something else: his assessment of his links prowess as he won yet again, this time at Muirfield.
The victories earned him starts in the Masters, which is a reminder of an oddity of those times: European elite amateurs had a more defined pathway to Augusta National than Europe’s professionals did.
Three years ago Brook organised the completion of Homer’s Odyssey – a return to Royal St George’s on the 50th anniversary of his first Amateur Championship victory. “We kept it low key but the club were fantastic,” said Brook. “The captain came to say hello and the caddies all met him. Trevor, who is now in his 80s, was bowled over.”
With that Brook was off to catch this year’s action – a man who loves golf’s past and its present.
Overheard outside the clubhouse midway through the championship was a conversation that acted as a reminder of the costs incurred when competing in elite amateur events – and the extent to which some players have to make alternative arrangements.
Two golfers were looking at flights back home. “Well, one consolation of missing the cut is that the flight home would be £80 as opposed to £300 at the weekend,” said one. “And we could park the car near the airport and sleep in it,” added the other.
There is no need for British golf to panic, of course. Among those making the last 16 was 17-year-old Kris Kim, who a little over 12 months ago was making the cut on his PGA Tour debut in the CJ Cup Byron Nelson.
Kim fell short of weekend golf when he returned to TPC Craig Ranch in Texas this May, but his management team at Trinifold Sports are taking a balanced approach, preaching patience and urging their boy to accept the inevitable peaks and troughs of a career in the game.
Trinifold CEO Jimmy Byers is encouraged by the progress made since Kim became the Wentworth Club’s first elite scholar at the start of the summer. “Kris is as good as a 17-year-old can be but he’s not the finished article,” he said. “There will be times when he plateaus and that’s happened, but this month there have been signs that he’s coming out of it.
“The environment at Wentworth is really good for him. The practice facilities are as good as anywhere and there are good people around him. He’s picking up invaluable information just from talking to the members whether they be Justin Rose or the likes of [soccer stars] Gareth Bale and John Terry. He’s also got warm weather options at Alcanada in Spain who have been so welcoming to him.
“He’s a very lucky boy, but he’s also a great kid and it’s interesting how he likes an experienced caddie. A lot of our lads prefer caddies their own age, but Kris likes a veteran.”
A star in the 2023 Junior Ryder Cup, Kim is hungry to find his best form soon and force the hand of the selectors ahead of September’s Walker Cup.
Matt Cooper