Tom Gandy Q-School Update
Tom Gandy shares his experience playing at the Royal Norwich Golf Club and talks about the precision required to progress in professional golf.
I feel like it’s been a little while since I wrote to you all to give you an update on my golfing season.
The 2024 season has now finished for me. My competitive golf finished 3 or 4 weeks ago when the Clutch Tour Championships were played at Royal Norwich Golf Club.
On the whole, this season has felt like another year of great progress, some good performances, some disappointing ones - but that’s golf.
My season-high finish ended in a tie for 4th at the most difficult course we play, St Mellion, in some pretty testing conditions too! I did (honestly!) not know any scores or results on the final day and in the wind and the rain played well and chipped in on the final hole to shoot level par - which both myself and my playing partners thought was enough to win the tournament, so in that moment they celebrated with me as if I had won. We then finished and checked the scores and realised I was a few shots off! But on top of highs like that there were many lows too.
The margins in professional golf are so small. The biggest disappointment of the season was not progressing through DPWT Q-School at the start of September. I had built momentum and felt very good heading in to that week. I chose a course that suited my game, the Players Club in Bristol - you need to be a good ball striker here as it’s long and fairly narrow in places. I set off and played solid; albeit not capitalising on some good play as I struggled a little on the greens. Playing the last hole I wasn’t sure what I needed but I knew I was fairly close and I hit my tee shot up the safe left-hand side to leave a wedge in to the green. I was a little concerned when I didn’t see the ball bounce, and when we got up there found my ball had caught the only bush up there, while the rest of the area would bounce hard right off the slope and back towards the fairway. The resulting double bogey after having to take a penalty drop meant I missed out on progressing to the next stage by 2 shots in the end - a par at the last would have been sufficient.
The second stage of DPWT Q School is next week in Spain so I’d have been writing this blog post with a different story to tell - one of optimism of going and getting my status back on the DPWT or the Challenge Tour, one of progression and high hopes for 2025. But as it is, the 2024 season is wrapped up for me and 2025 looks like another season playing at the same level I was this year, the Clutch Pro Tour. I’m absolutely fine with that, with golf you really do have to do a good job of accepting the outcome regardless of whether you ‘deserve more’ or if you feel hard done by. Your score is your score. I just need to find the way of making my score a shot or two better!
The hard work ahead of doing that starts now (or soon - I’m content not playing for a few weeks after a lot of golf these last 8/9 months!). I’ll approach the off-season systematically and with a plan, trying to find a way to come out swinging in 2025.
Thank you guys for reading and for your continued support in 2024.