Golf: Tennis star sheds the sideshow tag by acing his first golf title

Scott Draper is determined to win a spot on the US PGA circuit. Photo / Greg Bowker

SYDNEY - Scott Draper hopes he will no longer be treated as a "sideshow" at professional golf tournaments following his breakthrough win in the NSW PGA Championship.

The former Davis Cup tennis player, who last month knocked back the opportunity to become Lleyton Hewitt's coach, fired rounds of 70, 66, 67 and 65 to win the Von Nida Tour event at Riverside Oaks in Sydney last weekend.

The prizemoney of A$16,500 ($18,875) was less important to Draper than the confidence he gained in coming from four strokes behind and holding his nerve on the back nine on Sunday afternoon to win by one shot.

He made just one bogey all week, a testament to the powers of concentration he honed on the tennis court.

"It's given me confidence that I can make it as a golfer - absolutely," Draper said.

"It gives me a bit more credibility as well. I think before people thought 'Scott can play but he's still probably a bit of a tennis player and a sideshow act in golf'.

"Now there's a bit of credibility there, which will be nice."

Draper, a former junior Wimbledon tennis champion who reached No 42 in the world rankings, believes he has the game to achieve his ambition of playing on the PGA Tour in the United States.

After his win, Draper jumped straight on to a plane to Adelaide and teed up the next morning in the qualifying event for the Jacobs Creek Open at Kooyonga this week.

He shot two-under 70 around Blackwood, a course he'd never seen before, but just missed out on the four spots available into the main draw.

Draper will contest the New Zealand PGA Championship in Christchurch which, like the Jacobs Creek Open, is co-sanctioned with the secondary Nationwide Tour in the US.

That's his favoured route to the main PGA Tour and he will go to the US in June, prepared to play qualifying events week in, week out, just to get a toehold on the ultra-competitive secondary tour.

"I'm not daunted by it," he said.

Tenacity runs in Draper's blood.

The sportsperson he admires most is his first cousin Petria Thomas, who came back from multiple shoulder reconstruction operations to win three swimming gold medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

As a young man Draper had to overcome the crippling symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) to make it in tennis.