Richard Johnson will finally make his debut as a member of the US PGA Tour this week having endured a painfully rocky road to the top.
Hope a fitting place for rookie's debut
Welshman Richard Johnson will finally make his debut as a member of the US PGA Tour at this week's Bob Hope Classic in California having endured a painfully rocky road to the top.
Now approaching his 36th birthday, Johnson has taken jobs in restaurants and as a car salesman and has overcome injury and a marriage break-up to finally clinch his chance to compete with the game's elite.
After a spell at college in America, he turned professional in 1995 but failed to qualify for the European Tour and undertook an ill-fated spell on the Challenge Tour that, looking back, he describes as "Just horrible. Really horrible".
He subsequently headed back to America and did well enough at qualifying school to earn a place on the Nationwide Tour - America's second tier - in 1998 and looked to ready to make his big breakthrough when he won just his third event.
Disaster
Another followed in 2000, as well as a PGA Tour debut in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but in June of that year disaster struck when he slipped on a bridge at a tournament and broke his wrist.
When he regained fitness he found his game had gone AWOL and 2002-04 was a succession of missed cuts and poor pay-days.
As Johnson himself recalls: "I'd had some financial support, but the results were such a disaster that the plug was pulled. And my marriage broke up.
"It was a terrible time. I lost my house, my car, everything. I'd had enough and thought that was it in terms of a career playing the game.
"I thought I might be able to coach at a college, but hunted for a job for ages.
"I went back to Britain eventually, gave the European qualifying school another shot without success and then played a few events on the EuroPro Tour.
"I won once (the Pokermillion.com Classic in Essex, which earned him £10,000) and might have won another but for the fact that I couldn't open the boot of my car before the final round and had to play with rental clubs. Not clever."
But that improvement convinced him to give US qualifying school one last shot and it proved to be a wise decision.
Having missed out on a Tour card by just one stroke he returned to the Nationwide Tour in 2006 and racked up more than £50,000.
Last year proved even more fruitful and after a string of top-10 finishes and another elusive victory, he capped a memorable season by taking the circuit's Tour Championship to top the money-list with more than £220,000.
Excited
Those performances not only lifted him into the world's top 120, but also secured him that coveted PGA Tour card and, understandably, he heads into this week's event an excited man.
"I've waited a long time for this and I'm excited about a lot of things. It's going to be a lot of fun," he added.
His success has also allowed him to dream of the world's top-50, The Masters and even the Ryder Cup - all now in his sights and targets that would have seemed pure fantasy just a few years back.
"I want to break into the world's top 50 by the end of the year - I think that's reasonable," he added. "That gets me into the Masters next year.
"Then there's the Ryder Cup. That's absolutely a dream of mine, especially with it being in Wales in 2010. By then I think I will be ready."
It may well all have been worth the wait.
