KEY POINTS:
A couple of years ago, Clarke Osborne had to abandon life as a touring golf professional in Europe to earn enough money for a ticket home.
The 26-year-old Aucklander has had more than his share of the lows of earning a living in tournament golf, but he starts
this year on a high.
Last month, he was the leading New Zealand qualifier at the tour school for the Australasian tour. He finished with a share of 23rd place ahead of Hamish Robertson, Josh Carmichael, Doug Holloway and Mathew Holten, who also made the top 35 who earned cards for this year's season.
Clarke is a realist. He earned an Australasian tour card soon after leaving the amateur ranks, and lost it again within a year.
Starts in the main events were hard to get and there were no guarantees of finding a place in the field for the second-level Von Nida tournaments.
"They've changed the categories now, and I should get starts in half the main tour events and all the Von Nida ones," he said yesterday. "You've got to play more to learn how to win."
For two years Osborne travelled a lot, but never really arrived. After losing his Australasian card, he competed with little success on the EuroPro Tour in 2005 but had to drop out and take a job at the High Legh Park Country Club at Warrington near Manchester to pay for an airfare home.
The club invited him back last year, and in one competitive outing he won a tournament at Failsworth on the local Exel Tour.
He played the pro-am circuit back home and finished in the top 15.
"I really got to thinking what I should do - play golf or get a proper job. I've had great support from my parents and my mates. They said they'd give me a 9-5 job but my golf was better than that.
"Before the Australasian qualifying I went back to my old coach, Mike Moynihan, at the Auckland Golf Club and we worked really hard on my game for two weeks."
The hard work paid off. Osborne had rounds of 69, 75 and 70 on the Peninsula Club course in Melbourne to be in 12th place with one round to go.
The wind blew at more than 40 knots during the last day and his final round of 79 dropped him to 23rd, still safely among the qualifiers.
In two weeks he will tee off in the $A100,000 Victorian PGA tournament at the Sanctuary Lakes Resort with the chance to win a great deal more than his fare home.
