Gary Wolstenholme - The Long and The Short of It: The Autobiography of Britains Greatest Amateur Golfer

I am sorry Gary, but we are not going to be picking you for the England team to play in the Home Internationals at the end of the year. As Anthony Abraham, the chairman of selectors at the English Golf Union (the EGU), uttered those fateful words to me over the phone one June day in 2008, I realised that my England career was over. After representing my country on 218 occasions, I was being put out to grass excuse the pun. I dont suppose I should have been too surprised that there wasnt any great fanfare goodbye. When I won my 100th cap England did nothing to mark it; whats more they also even ignored my reaching 150 caps. When I played for England for the 200th time it was in a match against Spain at Royal Ashdown Forest. I played well all week, went out in the top singles match and was even interviewed on Sky Television, who did a biopic of my career to mark the milestone achievement, and, lo and behold, the EGU presented me with a cut-glass decanter. I was very grateful, but nearly fainted!

I made up my mind that if 2008 was to mark the end of my England career, it might as well be the end of my time in amateur golf too. I was shattered. Yes, I was 47 and I had far more good golf behind me than I probably had to look forward to, but I was still one of the best players in Britain at the time. I even finished the season that year seventh on the EGU Order of Merit. It was mid season and I only had months to turn it around. So thats what I did, finishing second in the South of England championship and winning the Lee Westwood Trophy with four sub-70 rounds in what turned out to be my last ever amateur competition.

My international demise had all begun earlier that year in May when I had played poorly for England in an international match against France at Frilford Heath. But everybody, surely, is entitled to an off day or two. Besides, I had all sorts of issues in my life at that time, not the least of which was that I had recently given up my job, put my house on the market, and decided to move back to my beloved Morecambe Bay, where I had spent my childhood years. These changes turned out to be pretty traumatic.

Id had a bit of a spat with my then coach David Ridley, who happened to be the lead national coach, at the 2007 European Mens Team Championships at Glasgow Gailes something and nothing really and, after that, I had always felt that there was a slightly uncomfortable edge in and around the England setup. It seemed that my clash with David had perhaps been the catalyst for change and, from that moment onwards, they were thinking that it was time to bring down the curtain on my amateur representative career. It had been made abundantly clear to me that the EGU wanted to focus on players under the age of twenty-five . If you were older than that it seemed you might as well forget about being able to represent your country, even though the vast majority of young golfers only saw the England team and the opportunities it provided them with as a stepping-stone to professional golf. Regretfully to me, it seems that this is something the EGU now actively encourage with little or no real feel as to what the history of amateur golf provides, just regarding it as a breeding ground for the Tours of the future.

I dont think they even considered that, with all the years of experience I had under my belt, I would be a good person to help those same young players, to point them in the right direction and to make them aware of the potential challenges they might face. I desperately wanted to give something back. Even today, if they asked me to help them out, I would of course say yes, although I doubt whether it will ever happen now.

Much of the respect Id had for the amateur bodies who control the game diminished when the England and Great Britain and Ireland selectors discarded me. I hadnt always been the most popular player around. A bit like Marmite, you either loved me or you didnt, and, as you will discover, I had often struggled to sit there and say nothing if I felt things were wrong within the amateur game. However I still dont believe that I deserved to be discarded like an old pair of slippers. It is, of course, their game; it is their bat and ball. I accept that, but after giving them twenty years or so of my life and making some pretty huge sacrifices during this time, that when the end did eventually come, I envisaged it arriving in a slightly more dignified manner, with a thanks and good luck message. In the end it was just a phone call one Tuesday afternoon.