Surrey’s James Morrison is ready to put in the hard work needed to get his career back on track after being labelled “an idiot” by a fellow player for pondering giving up.
Morrison lost his full playing rights at the end of last season and failed to regain them at the Qualifying School, and has missed the cut in four of his five events since.
In the midst of that spell the two-time DP World Tour winner swapped his clubs for a microphone to work as an on-course analyst during the Bahrain Championship, an experience he enjoyed and would like to repeat.
However, Morrison is also keen to embrace his limited chances to compete on the main circuit this season, starting with this week’s Magical Kenya Open.
“I’m only 40, still fit and healthy,” Morrison told the DP World Tour website.
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“I played a practice round with Sean Crocker here in Kenya. He’s like, ‘I can’t believe you’re only 40 and talking about doing commentary and giving up. Are you some sort of idiot?’.
“That sort of stuff has hit home with me a little bit. I’ve taken a breath for the last few months, but it’s now time to get my head down and try and succeed again.
“One thing I look back at with my career is I never enjoyed the highs enough and the lows were always too low.
“I think every golfer takes for granted good golf, winning events, finishing top five, playing the majors and being top 100 in the world, whatever else. You think that’s what your divine right is, but it’s not.
“I never really sucked in the good times as much as I really wanted to. I want to have those feelings again of winning and excelling and doing well and making my son and wife proud.
“I’m only going to get 10-12 DP World Tour events this season, probably, maybe a bit more than that, so I’ve got to try and take everything I can with both hands.
“But that is actually quite exciting for a mindset point of view because you can’t waste time and just have to give it everything and see what happens.”