Clever Trevor heading for the top

27th Nov 2009

UNIVERSITY of Birm­ing­ham grad­u­ate, Trevor Jones, is no stranger to pres­sure. That’s because golf, at a pro­fes­sional level, is a sport in which there is no hid­ing place. Lead­ing a tour­na­ment going into its final round means ris­ing to the chal­lenge or buck­ling, often spec­tac­u­larly, with no-one to point the fin­ger at but yourself.

It is not even that those who plum­met from the top of a leader­board or fluff their vic­tory lines are expunged from mem­ory. No, unlike the foot­ball cliché that nobody remem­bers a los­ing final­ist, in golf the ‘nearly men’ are the ‘unfor­got­ten men’ and the pit into which they fall is ever-widening. Even the game’s finest play­ers have col­lapsed under the weight of great expec­ta­tion. Tom Wat­son in last year’s Open Cham­pi­onship and Greg Nor­man at the 1996 Mas­ters are just two exam­ples plucked from a long list.

Last year Jones led by two shots going into the final round of the Welsh National PGA Cham­pi­onship. Whilst many expected the same unfor­tu­nate fate to befall him as has befallen so many other ner­vous overnight lead­ers, the men­tal and tech­ni­cal qual­i­ties that were honed dur­ing his time at the Uni­ver­sity were to ensure that he would hold on and claim the title.

Born in Cyprus, Jones, who turned pro­fes­sional three years ago, spent his for­ma­tive years in the Caribbean before his fam­ily even­tu­ally set­tled in the UK.

‘I think I sur­prised a few peo­ple in win­ning the Cham­pi­onship and most felt I would fall off the lead in the last round, but I man­aged to shoot my low­est score of the week to fin­ish as the only player under par. I guess I enjoy prov­ing peo­ple wrong’, said Jones, who, fol­low­ing his exotic upbring­ing, now resides in Bristol.

For Jones, 26, there is no doubt that vic­tory was the result of his hard work in an area of the game that has recently soared in pop­u­lar­ity; psychology.

‘At Birm­ing­ham I began to realise just how poor my psy­chol­ogy was and so I started to work with Joan Duda; her help has been invalu­able.’ Duda, a pro­fes­sor at the University’s School of Sports and Exer­cise Sci­ence, was the sport psy­chol­ogy con­sul­tant for the USA Women’s Olympic team at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

‘It’s a part of the game that is para­mount’, Jones con­tin­ued, ‘I used to be shy in the big com­pe­ti­tions but now I love the lime­light – the Welsh National, where there were over 2,000 spec­ta­tors, being the best example’.

Jones, who pre­vi­ously rep­re­sented Som­er­set under-18s, has a pro­fes­sional match­play record which is indica­tive of his com­mit­ment to improv­ing his on-course men­tal­ity. He has never lost; never buck­led. ‘I really thrive on the pres­sure of match­play golf’, Jones said. He recently defended his Glouces­ter and Som­er­set PGA Match­play Cham­pi­onship title after claim­ing a nar­row vic­tory with a final-hole birdie. His instinc­tive abil­ity to ‘pull a rab­bit out of the hat when­ever needed’ will be much envied by his play­ing colleagues.

Vic­tory in the Welsh National Cham­pi­onship pre­sented Jones with a sub­se­quent invi­ta­tion to the Celtic Manor Wales Open and his appear­ance in the Euro­pean Tour event was a huge learn­ing curve. ‘Even though I didn’t play my absolute best, the tour­na­ment showed me how well I’m poten­tially suited to the pres­sure of the high­est level.’

Jones stud­ied the PGA-accredited degree in Applied Golf Man­age­ment and believes that the course pro­vided him with the per­fect step­ping stone on leav­ing sec­ondary school. ‘I thor­oughly enjoyed my time at Birm­ing­ham. I chose the degree know­ing that I wanted to go to uni­ver­sity but keep a golf-oriented out­look, so it was a great alter­na­tive to the offi­cial PGA training.’

On grad­u­at­ing Jones was quick to find employ­ment at Bristol’s Ham­brook Golf Range; how­ever he soon realised that lim­it­ing him­self to a career in coach­ing was to under­es­ti­mate his tal­ent. ‘I got a teach­ing job straight away but I knew that I was much bet­ter at play­ing the game,’ remarked Jones who con­tin­ues to hold a periph­eral role in the range’s coach­ing setup.

Ham­brook has been an impor­tant inter­me­di­ary step on route to Jones’ deci­sion to pur­sue a pro­fes­sional play­ing career: ‘The sheer depth of advice and knowl­edge from the numer­ous pro­fes­sion­als at the range has really helped my devel­op­ment, and the head pro there has been incred­i­bly supportive.’

In 2010 Jones, who at 16 was a rel­a­tive late­comer to golf, will be play­ing full-time on the PGA Euro­Pro Tour. ‘I’ve man­aged to get pri­vate spon­sor­ship and I’ll be play­ing on the Euro­Pro Tour in an attempt to gain a Chal­lenge Tour card. The indi­vid­ual PGA events that I’m play­ing in at the moment are good expe­ri­ence but there is no flow as they are spread unevenly across the year.’

It has taken Jones many sea­sons of toil, espe­cially in the short game depart­ment, to reach his cur­rent level. Even dur­ing his three years at Birm­ing­ham, prac­tice was always at the core of Jones’ ardu­ous daily régime. ‘At uni­ver­sity all the stu­dents on the Golf Man­age­ment course who were intent on improv­ing spent their free time prac­tis­ing and play­ing, and I cer­tainly found myself amongst them. Our com­pet­i­tive­ness and like-mindedness meant that we spurred each other on.’

Jones admits that what he most admires about the sport’s élite per­form­ers is their ded­i­ca­tion and when asked whether join­ing them per­ma­nently on the Euro­pean Tour is a real­is­tic goal, his response was emphatic. ‘Of course, it has to be. If I didn’t think I could make it I would quit today and find some­thing else to do. I don’t think any­one should aim to be mediocre.’

Whilst in the long-term Jones would hope that major cham­pi­onships fea­ture con­sis­tently on his golf­ing cal­en­dar, there is an oppor­tu­nity for one-off glory through qual­i­fy­ing for the only major to be hosted this side of the Atlantic; The Open. Attempts at qual­i­fi­ca­tion have, so far, been in vain but Jones believes that this year his luck could change. ‘I’ve had two con­sec­u­tive tries at gain­ing entry but unfor­tu­nately I missed final qual­i­fy­ing by just one shot on both occa­sions. Next year there’ll be a def­i­nite improvement.’

This Decem­ber, Jones, who owes his sur­name to his father’s Welsh roots, will com­pete in the Stan­dard Bank Mau­ri­tius Open, an event which will draw over 40 Euro­pean Tour card-holders. It will be another oppor­tu­nity for him to pit his wits against some of the continent’s finest players.

Jones is yet to col­lapse under expec­ta­tion or pres­sure, yet to fall into the pit of plum­met­ing part-way lead­ers and fluffed vic­tory lines. His form, deter­mi­na­tion and  atti­tude are cre­den­tials which sug­gest that his play­ing career will be remem­bered for all the right reasons.