You would be wrong; you may have caught a glimpse of the events unfolding when you saw Matthew Southgate’s eyes full of tears as he walked off the same eighteenth, twenty minutes before Rory’s ball rolled up to just two feet from the hole. His reaction was completely understandable when you hear the back story. Having made what appeared to be his annual journey to European Tour Qualifying School in 2014, securing a card on the Challenge Tour, things must have seemed tough but hopeful.
Then in 2015 his family was hit with the horrible news that his two-year-old niece had been diagnosed with leukaemia. At this point he not only made the commitment to donate his winnings to helping his family at this time, but to pitch in with the hospital runs to Great Ormond Street.
In July 2015 he returned home, with a top ten finish in Germany, €6,375 better off, game in good shape, to a letter from his hospital’s Oncology Department requesting/demanding that he come in immediately. He had been diagnosed with testicular cancer and within a week the operation had been performed and effectively he had to sit out (probably not the best euphemism given his predicament) the most lucrative part of the season.
Now there is a fact of life for Tournament Professionals, if you can’t play you can’t earn. So whilst he was ‘resting’ every cardholder on the Challenge Tour was competing, earning and finalising their position within the Order of Merit. Either graduating to the main Tour, maintaining their position on the Challenge Tour for the coming year or, in Matt’s case, losing his card/work permit and not able to do anything about it.
So what did he do? You could forgive him for looking at another career or even just fading into the background, becoming a bitter, twisted ex pro who could never see past the hard hand he was dealt. This could not be further from the truth, he returned to competitive action in early September where he picked up his highest cheque of the year beating the German effort by €4000. Not bad considering he hadn’t hit a ball in the layoff (keep it clean guys).
Off to Tour School he went for first stage qualifying where the entry level pros begin their journey. Finished fourth. Second stage, where the quality of competition bumps up a few notches, finishing seventh. Then immediately off to Final Qualifying where the most exacting challenge awaits, six rounds of golf where your career is literally in the balance. Not a problem for Matt, finishing sixth.
You can only imagine that he had a thankful Christmas with his eyes and hopes focused on the 2016 season with perhaps a fleeting, wishful thought towards the Ryder Cup. The 2016 season began with six missed cuts out of seven. The seven tournaments being played across the globe with three in South Africa, one in Australia, one in India and one in China. The €4,200 euros thus far in prize money having gone down the drain at alarming speed.
Then, at last, things seemed to turn for the better, running into the Irish Open he had made three out of three cuts, and winning €51,910 in cheques. He’d made the cut for the weekend, posted a respectable 73 on Saturday which meant he was looking for a good payday on Sunday. Apart from one thing…. his finishes on Sunday have been very poor, extremely poor in fact, up until Sunday his stroke average for the fourth day was 74.25.
What he managed to do was steel himself, stick to the task and deliver, shooting five under for the last eleven holes; elevating himself from tied eighteenth to fourth spot, boosting his prize money from €51,000 to €200,000, shooting up from 153 in the Race to Dubai rankings to 51st. Not bad for a guy who has struggled with Sunday afternoons this year.
So while the spotlight was firmly on Rory, I am sure the glow “Uncle Matt Matt” was feeling was far warmer than any light bulbs. The final flourish to the story is that he has secured his playing privileges for 2017, he is playing in this week’s BMW at Wentworth and maybe just maybe, feeling that the Ryder Cup Squad isn’t that far away after all.