Scotland’s Paul Lawrie will this week celebrate his 500th European Tour event at the Volvo World Match-Play Championship,
Keith Waters, Director of International Policy with the Tour, was on hand today to present the 1999 Open Champion a gleaming ice bucket in honour of Lawrie’s achievement.
Lawrie becomes the 22nd player in the history of the Tour to tee up in 500 events and he will do that when he tees up Thursday on the Finca Cortesin course just to the south of Esteopona in Spain.
- Keith Waters from the European Tour presents Paul Lawrie with a momento in becoming the 22nd European Tour member to have competed in 500 events. (Photo – www.europeantour.com)
Lawrie will also be the fourth Scot to break the mark joining Sam Torrance, who contested 706 events, Gordon Brand Jnr (597) and Colin Montgomerie (570).
“Woh! Can you imagine that 500 Tour events?” said Lawrie.
“But then how did Sam manage to play 706 tournaments as that is a lot of golf tournaments.
“I think the best I could do is maybe another 100 to take the figure up to 600.”
Lawie made his Tour debut in the 1992 Johnnie Walker Classic in Bangkok having finished 12th on the Tour School some two months earlier in late 1991.
His wife of less than a year, Marion quit her job as a dental assistant to accompany her husband to steamy Thailand for the first-ever Johnnie Walker Classic.
“The lateness of my entry into the Johnnie Walker Classic it meant Marion and I had to make some last minute flight bookings,” he said.
“It wasn’t like nowadays where you can book your seat so we found our way right down in the back of the plane and also in those days you could still smoke on planes.
“So here was Marion and myself down the back virtually in the smoking section heading to Bangkok.
“I had turned pro at 17 with a five handicap in 1986 and then got to play with these boys each week – anything that happened after that was a bonus.
“I think that’s helped me longevity-wise. I still see it as ‘I can’t believe I’m out here winning and competing’.
“I still enjoy playing. I think I play more for fun now than I used to do with my sons coming up and being good golfers.
“Playing with them is a help. About three or four years ago I thought I might just scale this down a bit and play a little bit less.
“Then the boys got pretty keen into golf and I started playing a bit more at home and I’ve kicked on a bit again”.
Lawrie missed the Thailand cut by a stroke with scores of 70 and 73 but made amends in his next event, the Dubai Desert Classic and earning Euro 1,372.
Since then Lawrie has banked Euro 10.1m and breaking through the Euro 10m with his 14th place in the recent Volvo China Open.
MEANTIME –
Lawrie is contemplating the Home of Golf later this month for the launch of his biography entitled: “Paul Lawrie – An Open Book”.
“We finished off the book just recently so it’s ready to go to print,” he said.
“We’re going to launch it around October and the Dunhill Links the week after the Ryder Cup would be a great tournament to launch the book but we’ll see.”
Lawrie won the first-ever Dunhill Links in 2001 and using the then new Odyssey 2-Ball Putter.
“The funny thing is that the 2-Ball was a prototype and I managed to get my hands on it, and also Annike Sorenstam then used it a week or two later to win on the LPGA Tour,” he added.
“I’d like to know how many 2-Ball putters have been sold since my win at St. Andrews.”
