Bristol golfer Wood to turn professional next week

BRISTOL golfer Chris Wood, the amateur star at this year's Open championship, is to turn professional next week.

He will sign with the International Sports Management group and expects to make his debut as a professional on the European Tour next month.

His first event is likely to be the SAS Scandinavian Masters in Stockholm that starts on August 14.

Wood, aged 20, withdrew yesterday from the English Amateur Championship being played at Woodhall Spa next week.

“There are simply too many things going on,” he said. “I have had interest from other management companies apart from ISM and will have a couple more meetings before a final decision is made.”

But he has already been introduced to the ISM team and played in the company's corporate day at Wentworth on Thursday alongside ISM boss Andrew Chandler, the Northern Ireland Ryder Cup star Darren Clarke and former England amateur international Chris Mitchell, a Bristol and Clifton member.

Wood's team claimed first place in the 20-team pro-am and he returned to his Nailsea home with a prize of a case of Dom Perignon champagne.

“It was a super day,” he said. He mingled with other golf stars attached to ISM, among them Swindon's David Howell, South Africans Anton Haig and Richard Sterne, last year's amateur sensation Rory McIlroy, another ISM client, and Michael Vaughan, the England cricket captain.

Since finishing joint fifth in the Open at Royal Birkdale and winning the silver medal as the leading amateur, his week has been spent fielding a succession of phone calls, visiting his club Long Ashton and satisfying media enquiries. He was featured on a BBC Radio 5 golf programme on Wednesday.

His professional career this year will be restricted to seven tournaments, the maximum number of sponsor invitations allowed to any one player by the European Tour.

He will need to win around £200,000 in those events to guarantee a place on Tour next year. Otherwise he will have to attend qualifying school in Spain in November.

His pal Danny Willett – they were the members of a two-man English team that spent a month in Australia this year - turned professional in May sand also signed for ISM.

Wood pointed out that Willett, too, is only allowed to compete in seven tournaments and is making steady progress towards winning playing privileges next year having made £50,000 already.

There were thoughts that he could sign for a management company and remain an amateur but he said: “That's not possible. Once you sign you re a professional.”

Wood's exploits at Birkdale have been compared to those of Justin Rose at the same venue ten years earlier. Rose, now a multi-millionaire based in America, turned professional immediately and went on to miss 21 cuts.

But he was only an immature 17-year-old at the time but has since broken into the top ten in the world and won the European order of merit last year.

Wood, who shows great maturity and has proved to be a particularly strong character over the post two momentous weeks, can expect to make far more rapid progress in the pro game than Rose.