Tauranga golfer Josh Geary will tee it up on the lucrative European Tour next year. Photo / Getty Images
Tauranga golfer Josh Geary will tee it up on the lucrative European Tour next year. Photo / Getty Images
Last week the golfing world took notice when Tauranga pro Josh Geary shot 67, 64, 65 to finish off the intense six-round final European Tour qualifying tournament inside the top 10.
His reward is to join Kiwi Ryan Fox on the second most lucrative golf tour where lives are changedforever. Just ask Fox. He was struggling financially until a golden month on the European Tour this year saw him earn more than $1 million.
Geary at 33 has waited longer than most to make it. A less determined character would have swapped his golf clubs for a regular 9-5 pay day long ago.
But Geary is as stubborn and determined as they come. He never gave up on making either the US PGA or European Tours from when he started playing the 9-hole Otumoetai course as a little kid.
There have been plenty of barren years. In January 2014 he was so stretched he hosted a fundraising tournament at the Fairview Golf Club to help with travel, coaching and physio involved with playing professional golf.
When I spoke to him at the Fiji International in Natadola Bay in August this year he was upbeat about chasing a European Tour card after a career revival on the China Tour. He had put so much energy and so many years into chasing his dream that this European Q School must have felt like a last resort. And in so many ways it was.
He and another special Bay of Plenty golfer Brad Iles based themselves in the USA in 2012, desperately trying to earn a tour card or at least get enough starts to make a living. They shared a house in Charleston, South Carolina before they ran out of cash. It was a frustrating time.
Geary's desire to be patient was evident when he spoke to me after that difficult US stint.
"We have played against the guys who are out there and we have beaten many of them. It is just a matter of sticking with it and hanging in there long enough until it clicks for you. It is very fickle and some guys have got through to the top 25 and you wonder how they did it, as you swear they are not that good.
"It is all about timing and having a purple patch at the right time. It just hasn't been our time yet, I guess. But it is just so frustrating to not be out there doing well and not getting the starts."
The turnaround for Geary began with winning the Western Australian Open at the end of 2013.
"It was probably the biggest victory of my career and I really proved to myself that all the hard work I had put in and the things that I had been experimenting with were working," he said after the win.
Geary has won three Carrus Tauranga Opens but now his time has come on a much, much bigger stage.
His fighting spirit is sure to encourage others to keep trying. Tauranga golfers Kieran Muir, Hayden Beard and Luke Toomey were unsuccessful in their bids to make the European Tour.
No one deserves success more than Geary. It is in his hands now.
