Comment: Why Sally Watson might not be only LET player giving up game

Bearing in mind that she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Stanford University, it would be wrong to compare Sally Watson with the majority of other professional golfers, both male and female.

Sally Watson in action during the Curtis Cup. Picture: Bill Murray/SNS

All credit to her, though, for making a decision that can’t have been easy. The Elie-based player, after all, was being tipped as the next big thing in Scottish women’s golf not that long ago, yet has now ended her career in the paid ranks. She’s given up professional golf to find an “intellectual challenge”, which will come in the form of an MBA at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

On the one hand, we should be happy for Watson but, on the other, it’s a blow for Scottish golf to be seeing a talented player lost to the game, with the lack of opportunities on the LET at the moment definitely a factor in that no matter what anyone says. In Europe, the ladies’ scene in particular has become a brutally difficult place for anyone to be making a living and, unless that situation improves in the next year or two, Watson might not be the only player calling it a day and looking to do something outside the game.