Interview: Gordon Sherry

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When he won The Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool, Scotland’s Gordon Sherry was dubbed the next great superstar. It didn’t quite work out like that…

Gordon Sherry had the golfing world at his feet when two conversations changed his life. The first was with his mum after the Amateur Championship in 1994. He had just lost in the final and the pair were beginning the four-hour drive home to Kilmarnock. He was 20 and devastated. 

Twenty minutes into the journey from The Nairn Golf Club, Sherry’s mum decided to break the silence with some advice. She reminded the young golfer that the Amateur would be played at Royal Liverpool in a year’s time and all he needed to do was focus from now until then, and make sure he went one better. “It was a bit ambitious,” says the likeable Scot, “but it was good advice. From then on, the only thing that came into my head was going to Hoylake, the Amateur Championship and going one better.” 

A year later, Sherry was showing good form after securing a runner’s-up spot at the World Amateur Team Championships with Padraig Harrington. But in his quarter-final game against David Howell, he seemed to have lost his focus. “I was three-down with six to play and I thought I needed to do something or I was going home. I remember the pin being back right and I hit my shot into 15 feet. I holed the putt to go back to two down. I made four birdies in the last six holes and beat him one up. At that point I thought I could win this.”

He did, and it kick-started a remarkable season that would see him propelled into the golfing limelight, mixing with the sport’s glitterati and hailed as Scotland’s answer to a fledgling Sergio Garcia. Later in the season he would finish 4th in the Scottish Open at Carnoustie, play with the likes of Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus at the Open Championship at St Andrews, and lift the Walker Cup at Royal Porthcawl.

Back in Hoylake after the prize-giving, there was another drive home to endure. “We got in the car and drove straight home,” he says plainly. “We stopped off at Keele Services for a KFC. That was about it. I had been through such a high with all the media stuff and then all of a sudden it was finished. By the time I got home I was almost flat.”

He continues: “The next weekend I had the Scottish Strokeplay, then the European team championships in Belgium which Scotland won, then the Scottish Open and after that the Open at St Andrews. I didn’t really have a chance to settle. There was still a lot of golf to be played.”

It was a momentous year, but Sherry’s good fortune wasn’t to last. As well as receiving an honorary membership from his home club Kilmarnock Barassie, his win at Hoylake banked him an invite to the Masters. This would be his last amateur tournament and the launch of his professional career. It also heralded the start of a very public slump in form.

Soon after the event, Sherry contracted Glandular Fever, a viral infection that promotes high temperatures, sore throats and extreme tiredness. His strategy was to play on, but admits physically and mentally he wasn’t in the game. He then left his coach Bob Torrance, a move that probably didn’t help matters, and despite winning the Mauritius Open in 1997, his playing career ground to a halt. It was a huge anti-climax, the start of which could be traced back to the first tee of the Masters.

“Fred Couples asked me on the first tee if I’d had any good results recently. It was then I realised I hadn’t played any golf since the year before. I was on the first tee of the Masters and it was my first card-in-hand round of the year.”

This was Sherry’s second life-changing chat. “My overriding memory of the Masters was being completely ill-prepared,” he admits. “Having no competitive edge and not realising I had no competitive edge until I was standing on the first tee, when it was too late.”

Sherry shot 78 and 77 and missed the cut. “It was perceived as a bit of a disaster, but it was a miracle I broke 80 twice because I hadn’t played any competitive golf. I was naïve. I didn’t have a clue how to prepare for a tournament. I had lost my competitive edge. I didn’t have the right team around me giving me the right advice.”

Though events subsequently conspired against him, Sherry’s cataclysmic first-tee experience would also inspire the Scot to set up his own sports management company, which he launched quietly this year. Goliath Sports Assets, a name inspired by his 6ft 8inch frame, will be Sherry’s lead business venture and will help players cope with the rigours of life on tour.

“There are a lot of good amateur golfers coming through, but not that many actually make it,” he says. “I am a good example of that, and a lot of that is down to not getting the right support; the right mentoring. They’re not ready to turn pro. When you’re an amateur golfer you get everything done for you. Everything is paid for. Your hand is held constantly, and once you turn professional, it’s not really like that. It’s cut-throat.”

Teaming up with the likes of sports psychologist Tom Lucas, Sherry’s ambition is to help the latest crop of tour golfers negotiate their way over the mental and physical hurdles of pro golf. He’s been planning this for five years and after a stint with the ultra-private Eden Club in Fife, Sherry says he’s ready to put the past behind him and help others avoid making the same mistakes he made.

Despite his early promise and unfulfilled potential, Sherry is happy with his lot. Married with five kids, he seems ready to move on with his life with golf playing a central role. “I’m still standing and enjoying my golf,” he says defiantly. “It would be difficult to say I’ve been hard done by.”

Gordon Sherry’s Hoylake memories

First impressions
“It was really windy and tough. We played in late September and the course was exceptionally difficult as most links courses are in the wind. I was still pretty inexperienced. I had gone from boys’ golf straight into men’s golf – I certainly wasn’t first pick in the team. I had done well to get there and it was a great experience.”

The course
“When Tiger won in 2006, the course was baked, burnt and running. When I played in the Amateur, the rough was about a foot deep and lush. It was quite breezy, but my ball wasn’t running a hundred yards. Tiger didn’t use a driver. I remember hitting a driver and then a 2-iron to 15 in the final. It was a different course.”

The key shots
“Tee shots are key. There are a lot of holes where choosing the wrong club, or getting a slightly wrong line, means the traps are in such good places that your ball will run into one. Also, if you try and cut a corner and not quite carry it, you’ll be in trouble. You have to be quite particular about where you hit your ball off the tee.”

‘Why Tom Watson is my idol’
Sherry played three rounds with Tom Watson at the 1995 Open at St Andrews, which included a three-ball with Jack Nicklaus and a hole-in-one for the 21-year-old. “I met Tom at the Open in 2011. I’d bought his book, Timeless Swing, and heard he was going to do some signings. I was the last in the queue, I didn’t say anything. He just looked up and said ‘Oh my god, where have you been?’ Without a word of a lie, his next sentence was ‘What about that practice round we had with Jack Nicklaus in 1995? That was a great day’. I didn’t know what to say! I was gobsmacked. The guy is class.”

“What a ball striker!”
Gordon Sherry and Stephen Gallacher turned pro within a year of each other. Like Sherry, Gallacher had a difficult time adapting to life on tour. With illness set-backs behind him – and a big win in Dubai under his belt – he is now aiming for an automatic pick for the European Ryder Cup squad. “Gordon is one of the best ball strikers you’ll ever see. I played loads of golf with him and his putting was phenomenal. Obviously when he turned pro, he didn’t hole so many putts and perhaps it became a bit psychological. But since then he’s done brilliantly. And he’s a nice guy.”

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