Scott Gregory: 'We Don't All Fly 1st Class And Earn £1m A Week'

The 2016 Amateur Champion tells Golf Monthly about the realities of life on Tour

Scott Gregory: 'We Don't All Fly 1st Class And Earn £1m A Week'

Scott Gregory burst on the scene in 2016 when he defeated Robert MacIntyre at Royal Porthcawl in Wales to win the Amateur Championship.

That win gained the Englishman entry into three Majors and just a month on he led the Open Championship at Royal Troon after 10 holes as a 21-year-old amateur.

Around a year later he won 2.5 points from four matches in GB&I's comprehensive defeat away in LA at the Walker Cup.

Gregory was one of the best players on the team and looked destined to have a glittering professional career ahead of him.

That is definitely still likely but, similar to his fellow Hampshire man Justin Rose, it has been a difficult start to life in the pro ranks for Gregory.

In 2018 at Shinnecock Hills he was fighting against his game, a dodgy wrist and a supremely difficult US Open setup and eventually took 92 strokes to play the first round.

That was met with some criticism and the young Englishman then struggled the following year in his rookie season on the European Tour, battling mental and financial woes.

In this week's podcast, Gregory told us about his struggles between 2018 and 2019, although he is now optimistic for the future after two pro wins already this year.

"Since the US Open really I struggled off the tee and it's been a mental battle," he told Golf Monthly.

"And each time I played it got worse and there were technical changes I needed to make in my swing to try and counteract it but I couldn't do it whilst I was playing so it was just getting harder and harder to play.

"Some weeks I had control over it [his off-the-tee struggles] kind of but it was just a battle mentally off the tee and I've got on top of that now and I feel good off the tee.

"I've had two wins this year so I feel like my game is in a better place and I'm in a better place mentally as well on and off the course so it's a shame we're not playing really.

"Everything last year is a learning process and hopefully something that I can use to build on and kind of make my own path in my career because Rosey had a tough start to his pro career as well and it hasn't stopped him winning Majors, getting to World Number One, Gold Medals and things like that.

"So I've just got to find a way to make it work.

"The other thing for me as well is I wasn't playing well, don't have the finances to keep not playing well and need to see my coach but you can't fly your coach out for free.

"So you've got to try and find ways to do it and it's not easy.

"It's not as easy as some people think it is, if you're playing well it's a great place to be, you can afford to do everything that you need to do to keep playing well but if you're not it's tough.

"It's a lot of money [paying for everything, flights, hotels, caddies], I would say on average last year for me doing it kind of as cheap as I could do it, you were doing well if you spent less than £1,600 a week to play.

"I knew it wasn't going to be easy to start with but a lot of people think you're flying first class, you're not paying for your hotels and you're earning a million quid a week but that's not how it works, there's a lot of guys out there that aren't doing that.

"Yeah it's tricky, you've got to find ways to keep playing.

"I've got a really good team, last year I didn't have too much, Octagon [his management company] have done a really good job in getting a couple of things in place that helped me massively to keep playing.

"My golf club [Corhampton] helped me out, but yeah this year I'm in a better place.

"I've got Mizuno on board and a couple of local companies have got in touch so I feel in a better place to attack the season if we have one."

Listen to our full interview with Gregory on this week's Clubhouse Podcast:

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