Sky’s the limit for Horizon and McDowell

A TELEPHONE call at the end of last year from Graeme McDowell, at the time a promising if slightly under achieving professional, to Conor Ridge, managing director of Horizon Sports Management, drastically changed both men’s golfing world.

At the time, the two men were no more than nodding acquaintances but McDowell knew about Ridge’s company and how it could help propel his career forward at a time when he feared it was stagnating in the care of Chubby Chandler’s massive International Sports Management (ISM).

McDowell was just the kind of golfer Ridge needed to raise the image of his company, which, he admits, was struggling badly against giants of the business like ISM and the International Management Group (IMG). Up to then Horizon had been relying on largely unproven Irish golfers like David Higgins, Stephen Browne, Michael Hoey and Colm Moriarty to make an impression, but it wasn’t happening.