FLYING START

Guido Migliozzi won two times in his first season on the European Tour. He sits down with Michael Weston to discuss a dream debut campaign

To borrow a phrase from the world of social media, Guido Migliozzi is ‘living his best life’. If you follow the young Italian, you'll be aware of this. In 2019, he won twice in what was his rookie season on the European Tour. The 22-year-old is “doing the best job” and doing it rather well. Like most professional sportspeople, he keeps his fans up to date with regular Instagram and Twitter updates; nothing narcissistic, just his scoring, schedule and, more recently, the odd trophy shot. We can expect more of these, because the man from Vicenza has come a long way in a very short period of time.

In November 2018, Migliozzi claimed the 16th card at Q-School, a six-round grind he describes as a “marathon” and one he’d rather not experience again. He needn’t worry about that for the time being, not given the way he’s playing. His first victory came in just his 14th European Tour event at the Kenya Open in March, and the other at the Belgian Knockout 11 weeks later. What a start to your tour career. No wonder he’s grinning.

“Obviously it’s been a really good start. It’s been wonderful,” he smiles. It’s an understatement. Some players spend their whole careers on tour without ever tasting victory — and this young chap is already on a hat-trick. Despite this glittering start, however, he still finds himself in awe of the whole professional golf thing, travelling the world playing the game he loves.

“It’s a good feeling. I love everything, all the players, the organization of the tournaments, and I feel very good,” he says. “I played two years on the Alps Tour and Challenge Tour working on my game, starting from the bottom, and it took a while. I was saying in my head, ‘You're a professional, you have to do everything as a professional player’.