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By Mark Pouchet |
Port of Spain, T&T, Dec 2002: From a budding, diminutive 12-year-old making his debut at the 1992 Caribbean Junior Golf Championships to a towering six-foot four-inch 22-year-old harbouring aspirations of joining the United States PGA Tour, Damian Hale sure has grown up fast.
In that ten-year span, he has learnt a lot, the transition from adolescence to adulthood more than likely providing the young man with some of life's lessons.
In the golfing arena, though, Hale was always sort of a precocious talent. His dad Peter was the teacher early in his life.
"Since I could walk, one of my first toys was a plastic club that my dad bought me and I used to play in the bedroom and in the yard," Hale recalled delightedly last week while on a break at home from his international golfing travels.
"It has always been my dream...you know when other kids wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer, I wanted to play golf for a living."
A 30-year-veteran of the Trinidad and Tobago national golf team, his father Peter then introduced Damian to the game at the St Andrew's Golf Club course in Moka, which he built.
"Since I was four or five I have been up here at this course, hitting balls around the place."
In fact, Hale would tee off in local junior golf competitions from the tender age of seven.
Two years later, he changed residence to Florida in the USA to live with mom Tessa Watkins. The move presented him with the opportunity to play in bigger programmes like the Disney Junior Tour for three years before returning to Trinidad.
The Florida stint would eventually pay dividends.
After his debut at the '92 Caribbean Junior Championships held in Trinidad, Hale won the Under-15 category the next two years in a row, in Barbados and Jamaica.
Among his other major achievements was being crowned T&T Junior Champion for seven years straight (from the age of 12 to 18) and being one of the youngest winners of the Trinidad and Tobago Amateur Open Championship-one of the oldest open tournaments in the Western Hemisphere-in 1997 and 1998.
On the basis of those performances, he gained selection on the T&T Hoerman Cup squad at 17. Like his long, powerful tee shots, Hale had covered considerable distance in those teenage years. But it was not all clean hitting for him on his return to Florida. His forays during the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) 1997 season proved to be challenging. Good starts and good days-a course record 66 and 68 on the second and final day of an AJGA tournament at Legacy Ridge, Westminster, Colorado-proved not good enough for winning the championship.
At another AJGA tournament, Hale blew a three-stroke lead on the final day and in the resulting three-way play-off could only manage third place.
Personally, the promising starts resulted in disappointing outcomes for the then 17-year-old. But his inconsistency did not hide his talent. He was recruited by University of Arizona golf coach Rick La Rose to one of the best golfing programmes in the US and took up a full scholarship there in August 1998. The prospect of playing against the best university golfers was exciting for Hale.
"Until you prove to yourself how good you are, you don't really know how you compare to the rest," he mused. "As good as you think you are you never know until you compete against the best."
But university life was to be riddled with "sand traps".
"I had trouble balancing school and golf," he explained. "The coach was really hard on us to do well in academics and golf. He made it seem as if it was cake, you know...but it wasn't that easy."
Hale's daily schedule sometimes required him to train from 6 a.m. then scuttle off to class from 8 a.m. before returning to practice from 2 p.m. until dark. That was occasionally followed by work on the driving range. It was a struggle Hale would eventually lose. The attempt at juggling books and golf clubs failed and by late 1999 he packed up his duffel bag and left Arizona. It was a devastating period for the youngster.
"I was really unhappy when I left there. I did not even want to play, I did not want even to pick up a club or see the greens."
Dejected and disillusioned, Hale was out of action for a few weeks before Mom Tessa coaxed him back into the swing of things. After a few months of caddying at the Floridian Palm City Golf Club, Hale decided to turn pro in February 2000.
"I wasn't prepared to go back to school and I also realised how much passion I had for the game," he stated. "When I realised that I could do this every day for the rest of my life I decided to go for it."
In June of that year, Hale joined the Golden Bear Tour-one of the many mini-tours on the US professional golf circuit-eventually finishing 49th on the 168-player money list, with a season-best third-place finish in the tour's final event.
"It let me know I could compete with these guys," he stated.
There was major improvement later in 2000 on the South American Tour de las Americas-with tournaments in Caracas, Venezuela; Lima, Peru; Rosario and Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Sao Paolo, Brazil-where he ended 17th on the 110-player money list. He then proceeded to make appearances in two tournaments in Mexico. In the 2001 edition of the Golden Bear Tour, Hale experienced more success. There were four top-ten finishes and he amassed earnings of US$30,000 in finishing 18th on the money list, just shy of his goal of a top-15 finish. Hale credited the improvement on his maturity.
"I'm getting good experience out there, starting to understand how to control my nerves and pressure and use my mind more than just my pure physical ability," he stressed. "You just can't depend on your game."
He then felt he was ready to make the move to the big stage-the US PGA Tour. But he fell just short of getting into the PGA Tour Qualifying School late last year. But unlike his negative reaction to the university challenge, Hale has redoubled his efforts at PGA qualification. To his length and power off the tee, Hale has concentrated on his short game, putting extra emphasis on his chipping. And he is working on his mental application to the game.
"I need to be a little more patient. I can't just take what I want, got to grind on every shot, can't take anything for granted," he asserted.
"I know I gotta keep on working now because now I know what it takes to make it out there. It's just a matter of time. One day I'll be out there because this time I'm not gonna give up," he added.
Hale has reaffirmed in his mind his childhood goal of doing what golfing idols Seve Ballesteros of Spain, Australian Greg Norman and countryman Stephen Ames all accomplished-playing on the US PGA Tour. The chance to do so will come in October's PGA Qualifying School in Florida. His ability to seize the opportunity will depend in great part on his commitment and dedication to the task. And on how well he has learnt from the valuable experiences of the last few years of his young life.