Should ex-pros be able to compete in amateur tournaments?

It was a fantastic story. A brilliant player wins one of the game’s great titles and earns a spot at three of the four majors.

But Stuart Grehan’s recent victory at the Amateur Championship also raised a question in some quarters. Should somebody who has played professional golf be able to win the amateur game’s biggest prize?

Grehan spent several years on the professional circuit, playing his trade on the EuroPro Tour, Clutch Tour and Challenge Tour, before regaining his amateur status.

Since then, the 33-year-old financial consultant has enjoyed incredible success, winning the East of Ireland Men’s Amateur, the Irish Men’s Amateur and the Irish Men’s Amateur Close Championship before taking the men’s game’s ultimate amateur prize.

The Rules of Amateur Status allow professionals to apply to return to the amateur ranks but, while those rules may be settled, opinions still vary.

So should ex-professionals be able to compete in amateur tournaments? Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll debated this on The NCG Golf Podcast…

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“It’s a million miles from the ethos of amateur sport,” says Tom Irwin

I thought it was an interesting thing, and I don’t know where you sit with it and what I think about it – an ex-professional winning amateur golf’s biggest prize.

Amateur golf has changed a lot, hasn’t it? It used to be the space for working people to compete at the highest level without being paid for it. If you go back to the 60s and 70s we were almost still in the era of the gentleman amateur and we’ve moved a long way from that.

I think almost everybody who is winning this type of event would be better described as a semi-professional – they’re on their way up the ladder.

Mr Grehan has a job as a financial advisor so he’s fulfilling the brief of a bona fide amateur but he is someone who has played the game for money in the reasonably recent past and I think it’s a million miles away from the ethos of amateur sport.

I’ve always had this niggle about why we need to have the concept of amateur and professional status, and perhaps this speaks to that and I wonder if the real cut off is between the handicap and the non-handicap golfer.

“These events are only amateur in name. Now it’s just a different sport”, says Steve Carroll

I don’t have an issue with it. The Rules of Amateur status are clear on this. They say a non-amateur can be reinstated as an amateur by a national governing body, who can require a waiting period or can deny the request.

They have the final say and we’ve got a player here who has been a pro for some time, has decided they’d like to be reinstated as an amateur, and has gone through that process. That’s been looked at by an authority, who has said, ‘it’s fine’.

These events are amateur in name, basically. Nearly everybody in the field is usually aspiring to be a professional.

I know there are exceptions to that but if you go back 30 or 40 years the situation is entirely different. The competitors were amateurs in the Corinthian sense of the word and now it’s just a different sport.

Once you get to this level, there aren’t too many who aren’t aspiring to play professionally in some way. If you go back, amateurs were largely amateurs and golf was something players did because they loved it. Was there the same prospect of it being a career? Turning professional was just a completely different kettle of fish.

Now have your say

What do you think? Is the line between professional and amateur status blurring at the top end? Let us know in the comments or get in touch on X.

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