Todd Hamilton thought he did not belong up with the golfing elite. Now he knows he does.
The softly spoken 38-year-old American won the British Open on Sunday, completing a rags-to-riches story that saw him spend years in Japan struggling just to scrape a living out of the game.
He survived by the skin of his teeth and it was payback time at Troon as he took on the best players in the world and beat the lot.
”The last year-and-a-half has really just come out of the blue,” he said, beaming at the Claret Jug that rewards the winner of the world’s greatest golf tournament.
”I knew I was a decent golfer. I knew I tried hard. I knew I worked hard. Sometimes I think what kept me back was that I put a lot of pressure on myself to do well.
”And a lot of times I felt like tournaments like this, if I happened to get into them, I didn’t really feel that I belonged. So maybe all that can change now.”
Hamilton’s voyage of discovery began in 1988 when lack of success on the home front sent him to play in the fledgling Asian Tour.
He had some success and after winning the tour Order of Merit in 1988 he graduated into the more lucrative Japan Tour.
In the land of the rising sun he had success early on, then went through a five-year stretch when he struggled once again.
But there was one thing that kept him grafting hard to get back into the frame — Japanese television,
”The TV in Japan is really not that good, so it was useless for me to go back to the hotel and try to watch TV,” he said.
”So I would just stay at the course until it got close to dark, whether it was chipping, putting, hitting balls, I would do it. Maybe I play too much golf, but it beats working and that’s for sure.”
Golfing overdose, or not, Hamilton reaped the dividends last year in Japan where he won four times on tour and that finally allowed him to achieve his lifelong ambition of getting his card to play on the USPGA Tour.
That brought him back to where he had begun 17 years beforehand and this time success came almost instantly as he won the Honda Classic during the early part of the season.
But he said his game had gone sour again in recent weeks with a succession of missed cuts just prior to the British Open and no attention was paid to him before two successive 67s gave him the third-round lead at Troon.
His experience, he said, should be a lesson for all the journeymen of the golfing world and all the youngsters pondering whether to have a crack at making a career out of golf.
”I know we had another rookie this year win in the [United] States, Zach Johnson, who came off the Nationwide Tour and won a tournament in Atlanta,” he said.
”I hope our victories can spur guys whether they are rookies on the PGA Tour, on the Canadian Tour, on the Hooters Tour or the Challenge Tour here in Europe.
”If they look at us and see, if that guy can do it, who’s that guy, I should be able to do that. I think that’s good for the game of golf.”
After the years of struggle, Hamilton’s future is now secure and one of the most improbable and unassuming of Major winners now can show up on the big occasions and say: ”Here is where I belong.” — Sapa-AFP