Sherry sips at the big time

GOLF: Next week's US Masters will end a way of life for one amateur. Tim Glover talked to him

Gordon Sherry will turn professional sooner or later and the odds say it will be sooner, i.e. next Friday as opposed to Sunday. Whatever happens, Sherry's last tournament as an amateur is the Masters at Augusta National which starts on Thursday and if he fails to make the half-way cut he will join the paid ranks before Saturday comes.

As the reigning amateur champion, Sherry is one of the special invitees to Georgia's exclusive garden party, the first major championship of the season. Although Bobby Jones, the man who built Augusta National and inspired the Masters 62 years ago, was the greatest amateur of all, the record of the Corinthians suggests that Sherry's appearances down Magnolia Drive will be limited. Amateurs do not hang around for the weekend of the Masters.

"If I win it," Sherry said,"I'll have a big party at the end." He did not laugh when he made the remark. Sherry will be 22 on Easter Monday and what concerns him is that he has a debt to pay, particularly to his parents, Anne and Bill. Anne teaches handicapped children, Bill is a retired policeman and they have raided the Bank of Scotland to fund a family excursion to America.

"I can't wait to turn professional," Sherry said. "Being an amateur and trying to play in tournaments is a nightmare. The stupid rules mean that I'm not allowed to get any expenses and once again my mum and dad have had to fork out. It's scandalous. I win the amateur, go abroad to represent Scotland on behalf of the Royal and Ancient and because of the ridiculous regulations it's my parents who end up paying. I could have done a few things but nothing that would have been legal. I can't sign anything until I turn pro."

Sherry had to decline an invitation to play in the Desert Classic in Dubai last month. "There was no point," he said. "It would have cost me well over pounds 1,000 and that didn't include food or expenses for my caddie." He is not short of invitations or sponsors or management advice and will almost certainly sign for the Edinburgh-based company Carnegie next weekend. On the customs declaration form going out to Georgia he described himself as a student. On the return leg he can write: professional golfer.

As Sherrys go he is in the schooner class, 6ft 8in (three inches taller than his father) with a shoe size, 13, that has old Bill written all over it and at the top is a shock of ginger hair which suggests he could understudy as a lighthouse in the Firth of Tay. In every sense Sherry made a huge impression last summer which had agents clamouring for the number of his mobile phone.

After winning the Amateur Championship at Hoylake ( where Bobby Jones won the Open in 1930, the last amateur to do so), he had a superb 100 per cent record in leading Scotland to the European team championship at Royal Antwerp and then finished fourth in the Scottish Open at Carnoustie behind Wayne Riley, Nick Faldo and Colin Montgomerie. No amateur had ever made the cut in the Scottish Open. It was the fourth-best performance by an amateur in a European Tour event and had he been a pro he would have won pounds 30,000. As it was he won pounds 1 off Tiger Woods, betting the American amateur champion he would finish higher than him.

Sherry received a special bottle of whisky from Carnoustie Golf Club. He responded: "This is the best links in the world [enthusiastic applause]... apart from Kilmarnock Barassie." That, of course, is his home course. The whisky is still on the shelf. "We're not drinkers," Anne said, "and Gordon doesn't touch a drop. With a name like ours we don't need to."

After Carnoustie, the dry Sherry enjoyed another fabulous week in the Open at St Andrews. In a practice round he played with Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus and got a hole in one at the eighth. In the second round of the championship, playing with Watson and Greg Norman (combined earnings pounds 50m) Sherry (student grant) shot 71 to Watson's 76 and Norman's 74. "Did I get any sleep? Of course I did. I'm a student."

George Bush, following the three ball, remarked on Sherry's golf and added: "I hear he's a nice guy." Those around him, not counting men in raincoats, dark glasses and holsters, confirmed to the ex-President that Big Gordy was indeed one of the best. Nicklaus invited Sherry to his tournament, the Memorial in Columbus (he will play in it later this year) and Norman said of him: "He's intelligent, likeable and nothing seems to faze him. He reminds me a bit of Ernie Els. I'm really really impressed with this kid and I can't say that about many youngsters I've played with around the world. The game needs a breath of fresh air and he's it." Watson, remarking that Sherry was large enough to play tackle for the Kansas City Chiefs, said: "He's got a great smile, a sense of humour... he's just a delightful guy. Besides that he can play."

It is not true that nothing fazes him. "The attention has put a strain on the whole family," he said. "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't difficult. It is nice for people to take an interest but with some it's almost hero worship and I'm not a big fan of that. I'm still the same person and I get annoyed when people treat me differently just because I play golf well. The phone never stops and I've got to be tougher. As a pro I'll be a small fish in a big pond."

By the time he brought a momentous year to an end by leading Britain and Ireland to victory over the United States in the Walker Cup at Royal Porthcawl, Sherry, feted and dined, was hitting the scales at 20st. This year he has done a Montgomerie and has lost three stone. "I like my mum's cooking too much," Sherry said. "I was overweight but not by that much. I'm not starving myself, I'm just being careful. Breakfast, lunch and dinner is all I need."

After the Walker Cup he returned to Stirling University to complete his studies for a degree in biochemistry. He will get the results in June. Sherry has not had a chance to play competitive golf this year but spent a month practising at Desert Mountain in Phoenix, as a guest of the owner Lyle Anderson, and two weeks at Valderrama. "I got a cheap flight," he said. Anderson also owns Loch Lomond GC and has made Sherry an honorary life member.

If he has saved a few bob on his own food bill, Sherry has another mouth to feed: he has employed a caddie, George Sprunt, alias Turnberry George, an experienced bagman on the circuit. In addition to playing in the Memorial (Big Jack laid down one condition, that the Scot was not missing any exams), Sherry has received invitations to the Kemper Open in America, the Benson and Hedges International, the Murphy's Irish Open, the Loch Lomond World Invitational and the Italian Open and also hopes to get into the English and Scottish Opens.

As for life on tour, Sherry has had a chat with his best pal, Stephen Gallacher, the nephew of Bernard, who turned professional earlier in the year. "I played nine events in a row last year so I know what it's like to play out of a suitcase," Sherry said. "It can't be much different from being an amateur. The only difference is that it's your living."

Augusta National offers amateurs on-course accommodation, a bedroom in the clubhouse Crow's Nest, but Sherry declined. "People would know where I am and I'd get pestered. We're staying in a wee private house." A bodega of Sherrys will make the trip - parents, aunts, uncles and his elder brother Iain who has a handicap of eight. "He likes to describe himself as a lithographer," Sherry said. "He's a printer."

Sherry gets 10 tickets for the tournament but only two that will gain entry to the clubhouse. "I've already given them to mum and dad." At Augusta he will also be reunited with his coach, Bob Torrance. "The last time I saw him I said `see you at the Masters'. Imagine that. It sounds fantastic doesn't it? See you at the Masters. If I win it I'll go ex-directory. No I won't, I'll emigrate." No he won't.