Professional golf training an enjoyable challenge, says Sean
As his brother Blair prepares for the New Zealand Open, Sean Riordan goes about his business as the trainee professional at the Nelson Golf Club. He is pleased that New Zealand Golf is now reserving places in the Open for the country’s best amateurs. If that had been done while he was still an amateur he would have got at least two starts in the prestigious tournament.
As a junior professional, though, Sean is enjoying plenty of success. In February he won the NZPGA trainee championships in Napier by eight shots.
“All the trainee pros have to play the tournament. The NZPGA uses it as a chance to get us all together and do some training in various aspects of our job - like physiology, psychology, diet and nutrition. They get us to do coaching papers on things like how analyse videos, too.”
Sean says he is enjoying the challenge of training to be a golf professional.
“We have to do 20 to 30 assignments a year by correspondence as well as trying to play at a decent level. One of the things we learn about is called ‘professional skills’, which deals with all the things you have to be able to do to be a successful professional in a club. The learning has a real purpose to it - it really means something. You learn about yourself in the process.”
Sean’s success in the trainees’ tournament in February earned him an invitation to the equivalent event in Australia, called the Futures Championship. It was played at the Club Catalina course in Bateman’s Bay, New South Wales last month. Sean had a great event, finishing third overall at six under par, after breaking the course record with a score of 66 in the first round.
“I was in contention till late in the last round. I had a bit of momentum going but there was a hailstorm and that meant we had a 10 to 15 minute delay and the leaders kind of regrouped and went away from me.
“The tournament was lot of fun. It was interesting getting the kind of attention that happens after a good score and when people expect you to play well. I was a bit rusty at that.”
By the end of 2013, Sean will be a fully fledged NZPGA professional and he says he will consolidate for a while.
“I’ll look at coaching for a while and then start looking at the qualifying tours. It’s a matter of keeping in touch with things for the next couple years and then having a real crack at it in 2014.”
Neil Wilson
