Meet The Mena Tour's New Boy Wonder

As the youngest player to win an Official World Golf Ranking event, JOSH HILL clearly has game. But it’s the MENA Tour stars’ unflappable demeanour that truly sets him apart

- Kent Gray

Josh Hill is hamming it up for the cameras in a studio just off Dubai's hectic, 14-lane Sheikh Zayed Road. While his contemporises are busy doing what most kids do on Thursday afternoons in the emirate – clock watching at the end of the high school week - the 15-year-old is making deliberate air swings on demand. Like his trademark flat-line demeanour on the golf course, Hill shows no hint of emotion despite being in the midst of an exciting media frenzy that has followed his historic victory at the Al Ain Open the previous afternoon. The scene is about as far removed from the teen’s natural habitat as he can imagine – “really weird” as he puts. This is the domain of paid fashion models pouting for glossy woman’s magazines, not a 15-year-old amateur golfer who famously requested a feed of fried chicken to celebrate the day of his young life the night before. But Hill is handling the Golf Digest Middle East cover shoot, minus any media handlers or even his parents who are at work, with aplomb. It’s not every day you get your first cover for Golf Digest so he’s happy to swing and smile on request, and to accept the offer of a ride home afterwards. He can drive with the best of them, just not a car and certainly not on the bumper-to-bumper highway in earshot.

Hill has ticked off countless interviews already and will head to an in-studio radio appearance later in the evening to talk about what it is like to see you name whiz around the planet courtesy of newsflashes from the likes of the BBC, the Golf Channel, Golfweek and ESPN.