1 week Ago By [email protected] (Felix Keith, James Pallatt)
Andy Murray has secured his first trophy since trading his tennis racquet for golf clubs. The 37 year old, who retired from tennis after a defeat in the men's doubles at the Olympic Games on August 1, has been honing his skills in a new sport. His Twitter bio, which once read: "I play tennis", now states: "I played tennis.
I now play golf." Murray is aiming to reduce his handicap to scratch within a few years and has already impressed fellow celebrities at the Pro-Am event at BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth last month. On Tuesday, he participated in the inaugural BTJA Mike Dickson Golf Day at Hanbury Manor Golf Club in Hertfordshire, an event organised by the British Tennis Journalists' Association in memory of former Daily Mail journalist Mike Dickson, who passed away in January aged 59.
A post by the BTJA on Twitter announced that Murray had won the championship, a testament to his growing skill off the tee. Currently with a handicap of seven, Murray is taking regular lessons and fellow Scot Bob MacIntyre believes he will improve quickly. "For someone that's not really played that much, I thought he was good," said world No.
16 MacIntyre, reports the Mirror . "I was very impressed with his game. He'll be scratch in no time.
" Andy Murray, the former tennis world number one, spoke candidly about his foray into golf at Wentworth. "It's a different sort of nerves, because you are comfortable in the sort of tennis environment. I'm not thinking I'm going to walk out on the tennis court and forget how to hit the ball," he admitted.
"Whereas here, there's people standing five metres away from where I'm driving, and I'm like, I'm useless at this game. You just want to try and keep the ball in play and don't mess up too much." He continued, discussing his approach to improving at the sport: "I'm obviously getting to practice a lot more than the average person.
I obviously played a bit when I was younger, and if I can get the right sort of lessons and practice the right things, then yeah, I've got a chance of doing that." The Scot stressed the impact coaching has had on his game: "The lessons have made a huge difference. That's been the most important thing for me.
I used to go down to the range and hit lots of balls, and I could hit a few good ones. But if you have a fundamental flaw in your swing or what you're doing, it doesn't matter how many balls you hit on the range. So, getting lessons and practicing those things is helping.
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