Peter Whiteford no longer playing the waiting game

Published on Saturday 9 July 2011 18:17

Peter Whiteford has spent ten years on the fringes but, as our reporter discovers, now he's ready to prove he deserves to be among the big names

AFTER nearly a decade as a tournament professional, searching for lost form, scraping about for money and wondering at times if it was all worth it, Peter Whiteford is reaping the rewards. Even before his name appeared on top of the leaderboard in Friday's second round of the Barclays Scottish Open, he had been having quite a season on the European Tour, reaching 37th on the Order of Merit with over 364,327 (327,496) in prize money. This week, he will cap it all by making his debut in the Open Championship.

Whiteford, 31 next month, is no spotty amateur, thrust into the season's third major before his time. The Scot has paid his dues in the last few years, responding to setbacks with a combination of hard labour and sheer bloody-mindedness before earning the right to tee it up at Royal St George's with rounds of 67 and 64 in last month's international final qualifying event at Sunningdale.

His sights this season have been set on the Race to Dubai, and if possible, a first victory on the European Tour, but a shot at the Claret Jug has got his adrenaline pumping. "It will be my first major, something you always dream of playing in," he says. "It'll be fun. I've been trying to qualify for I don't know how many years - ten, I guess - and haven't made it so this is a big bonus for me. It's not something I had marked down on the schedule, put it that way. And luckily, I seem to be playing well."

Quite apart from his performance at Castle Stuart, the Kirkcaldy-born player has had four top-ten finishes this season, including a seventh place in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, all of which are the result of a subtle improvement, not so much in his game as his outlook. "I'm just a bit more confident," he says. "And when you're a bit more confident, you're a bit more comfortable with your surroundings. This is my third year out here (on the European Tour]. You get to know most of the golf courses and where the pin positions are going to be. I'm a slow learner."

Whiteford has never doubted his ability, but there have been times when his temperament has held him back. He turned professional in 2002, spent two years on the Europro Tour and five on the Challenge Tour, only to grow increasingly demoralised by the slow pace of his progress. In 2007, he was on the verge of quitting the game when a pair of quickfire wins changed his mind. "Things were pretty grim when I was thinking about maybe jacking it in," he says.

"I didn't go to my room and cry or anything - there are worse things in the world - but when you're playing bad, nothing's rosy."It still frustrates him that he cannot do in golf what he used to do in rugby, a game he enjoyed as a schoolboy. "I sort of miss team sports. I miss sports that allow you to take your aggression out on somebody if you make a mistake. Golf's the complete opposite. In golf, if you make a mistake, you have to somehow put it behind you and stay calm, which is easier said than done sometimes. I am quite hard on myself to be honest. You set yourself goals, and if I'm not reaching them, I get quite annoyed, which is never very conducive to good golf. It's just a matter of experience I suppose."

More of which Whiteford gains with every passing week. At the same stage of last season, he was in a similar position on the European Tour money list, only to win scarcely a penny thereafter. There is no sign of a decline this time round, but if one were to threaten, he would be better equipped to respond. As the results have improved, so has his self-esteem. He has learned to chill out a bit, enjoy the good times, and not punish himself for the bad.

"I'm starting to come round to what makes me play well, and how to prepare for a tournament. Maybe in the past I hit too many balls on the range and didn't play enough. I was trying to grind things out when I didn't need to. After a bad round, I would spend five hours on the range the next day when maybe all you need is to clear your head. I prefer to play, even just a bounce game with my mates, than stand on the range for hours beating balls."

Which is all too easily done. Whiteford, you see, has a range of his own, or at least his family does. His brother, Stewart, and his coach, Donald McKay, are teaching professionals at Wellsgreen golf centre, near Leven, which was built on his parents' farm. That, he suspects, is where he might have ended up had the career plan not worked out. "I'm not really into the farming," says Peter. "I couldn't even tell you how to grow grass, never mind a field of crops. That's why I was sort of panicking when the golf was going badly. I've not got any qualifications. That's the problem with golfers. If you fail, you can be sat there at 30 or 35 with nothing."

He needn't have worried. A few years back, he was struggling to make ends meet on the Challenge Tour, at one point paying the bills by working in a call centre during the winter. Two months ago, he was accepting a cheque for 99,750 (89,666) in recognition of his performance at Wentworth, easily the best of his career. More valuable than the money was the experience of beating big players in front of big crowds, more of which he will encounter at Royal St George's this week.

Whiteford has barely watched an Open, never mind played in one, although he did make the short trip to St Andrews in 2000."I don't think I made it past the beer tent up the side of the 15th," says the Fifer whose caddy, Elvis Seme, has at least experienced the event from inside the ropes. Pelle Edberg, the Swedish player, is among his former employers.

As yet, Whiteford is one of only five Scots in the field at Sandwich, although another could claim the last remaining spot at Castle Stuart this evening. He is excited by the prospect of proving himself to the game's best players at one of its best venues, but there are no great expectations, no targets for the week except learning from the experience.

Despite three top tens in his last five starts, he is still getting used to challenging on a Sunday afternoon. If, for instance, he had been expecting to be in contention for the Barclays Scottish Open title, he would not have booked himself on a flight south at 5pm today. That reservation was expected to be cancelled after his rise to the top of the leaderboard on Friday.

At Royal St George's, he expects to be a peripheral figure, however well he finishes in the Highlands. "You kind of know, being a qualifier, when you're going to tee off. You know you're going to be last off, with the greenkeepers chasing you in. Either that or you're finished before everyone else has got out of bed. That's what comes of being a qualifier. I'm not exactly a household name." Not yet, anyway.