“People think YOU'RE FLYING FIRST CLASS, YOU'RE NOT PAYING FOR YOUR HOTELS AND YOU'RE EARNING A MILLION QUID A WEEK, but that's not how it works”

Former Amateur Champion Scott Gregory talks candidly to Elliott Heath about the challenges of professional golf

- Scott Gregory

Scott Gregory burst on the scene in 2016 when he defeated Robert MacIntyre at Royal Porthcawl to win the Amateur Championship. That gained the Portsmouth man entry into three Majors, and just a month on he led the Open Championship at Royal Troon after ten holes as a 21-year-old. Gregory went on to win 2.5 points from four matches in GB&I’s defeat at the 2017 Walker Cup, where he was one of the best players on the team. At that stage, he looked destined to have a glittering professional career ahead of him.

That is, of course, still likely, but much like fellow Hampshire man Justin Rose, it has been a difficult start to life in the pro ranks. Gregory has won twice in 2020 on developmental tours, but it has been anything but plain sailing since he joined the paid ranks. He qualified for the 2018 US Open at Shinnecock Hills but was fighting against injury and a supremely difficult set-up and eventually carded a 92 in the first round. A series of missed cuts on the European Tour followed.

Here, Gregory tells Golf Monthly about his rise to the top of the amateur ranks and his early struggles in the pro game…

When did you first know that you were very talented?

I wouldn’t say I was necessarily the best junior golfer. I was probably the one who worked the hardest to get better, but I didn’t really get to the stage where it was like, ‘Okay, I could actually very easily do this’ until I was maybe 17 or 18. I started working with Simon Andrews on my swing and made some good changes and from then on it has just been a progression every year.

So how much of your time was spent practising?