Dedicated Denis ‘still improving’

WHEN he started on the European Seniors Tour back in 1998, Denis O’Sullivan’s chief rivals were people like Tommy Horton, Antonio Garrido, Brian Waites, Malcolm Gregson, Jose-Maria Canizares, Brian Huggett and Maurice Bembridge.

It must have been an intimidating proposition for an unheralded amateur to take on these and other greats of the professional game. As far as they were concerned, this Irish upstart was "the amateur" who would appear in their midst for a year, maybe two, before disappearing again. But they were mistaken, just as those who came after them, golfers of the stature of Neil Coles, Noel Ratcliffe, Eddie Polland, Ian Stanley, Terry Gale and so on got it wrong. O'Sullivan was there for the long haul and earned their grudging admiration through hard work; that in turn produced a remarkable improvement in his golf game and a very agreeable standard of living.

Given the nature of seniors golf, new faces are coming on the scene all the time but Denis isn't fazed in the slightest that people like Greg Norman, Sam Torrance, Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros and Ian Woosnam, to name but a few, have either turned 50 or are approaching the half-century.