The Winner Takes It All

One. Boy Wonder

I was five years old the first time I picked up a golf club. It was a putter and I can remember the look of pride on my fathers face. A look that only appeared when it came to golf.

Desmond Styles was a hard man. He was a tyrant when it came to the game of golf and he was my biggest critic. Sometimes I regret picking up that putter when I was five years old.

At the first glimmer of interest I showed in the game of golf I was enrolled in lessons. I loved it at first, but then it became a chore and I wanted to spend my time playing outdoors with my friends instead of on a course with a bunch of old guys in funny pants and shirts.

I can remember once when my father was out of town on a business trip and I was supposed to head to my golf lesson on my own. I was an idiot to think I could choose to spend time with a high school girlfriend and skip out on my lesson without his knowledge. I ended up with a busted lip for four days. When I say Desmond Styles put all of his stock in the game of golf, I mean it.

Sometimes I think parents live vicariously thru their children. Forcing them to live out their own failed dreams. My mother was too caught up in her second marriage to know what was going on behind the scenes. I left his home one day after a huge argument and never went back, instead choosing to go to my mothers. I was 17 years old and it was at that point I knew that golf was the key to my freedom. I could earn more money than imaginable and have everything I wanted because of holding a golf club and chasing a stupid ball around lush grass.

I earned a full ride to UCLA on a scholarship to play golf. I earned a bullshit degree in sports broadcasting while making a name for myself in America on the young amateur golf circuit. Los Angeles is the city of dreams for a college student having everything handed to him because he's one of the best young golfers in recent history. Having a penchant for girls and booze it was everything I dreamed the city would be.

It's every girls dream city if she wants to be an actress or a model or even a singer. It's where stars are born and I could have a different one in my bed every night. For a kid from Cheshire I was doing pretty fucking amazing.

At twenty I was accepted into a two week golf program with none other than Tiger Woods and I was ready to quit school and turn pro right then and there. His one piece of advice to me being "kid don't quit school". So I remained, got my degree and immediately signed up as an amateur to play in as many of the big boy tournaments as I could. I had something to prove and I fucking proved it.

I turned pro a week after I turned 23 and then the sponsorships began to roll in. I wanted to get my name out there as much as I could so I hustled and it paid off. Fellow golfers hated that my name and face were everywhere and I upstaged everyone in the field, even when I didn't win. I was a spokesperson for pricey watches, a luxury car company, an airline, Adidas even asked me to do a collaboration for a golf apparel line and of course I accepted. I never turned down an opportunity to get my name out there.

I got lucky and won a major tournament my second year of turning pro and my star is still rising. At age 26 I've set my sights on Augusta, Georgia. I want to win the fucking Masters tournament.

The Masters are the biggest there is. It's the first tournament of each new season and it's the home of the coveted green jacket. It might be silly and ugly as fuck, but I want one. Jack Nicklaus has six, Tiger has five and  Arnold Palmer had four.  You have a green jacket? You're golf royalty.

I ended my season doing well and making a lot of money. I was looking forward to the off season and my first post season trip was going to be Miami. I sat down with my agent and decided on doing the four major tournaments and about eight of the additional ones for a 12 tournament season next year.