He may humbly continue to label himself as ‘just a lad from Newcastle with a bit of talent’, but there’s far more to Chris Paisley than that.
The Hexham man is one of the few golfers from the North East to break through into the professional ranks, and his win at the 2018 BMW SA Open on the European Tour was a vindication of his talents.
WATCH: Chris Paisley BMW SA Open winner’s interview: ‘Wife gets 100%’ https://t.co/LTed6k282n pic.twitter.com/6KmIjnRKtS
— Golf Monthly (@GolfMonthly) January 16, 2018
Though a trophy drought has ensued since then, the 35-year-old has continued to demonstrate in flashes that he is still a player with immense talent.
Whether The Open Championship tips will be predicting an ace at Royal St George’s in July remains to be seen, but it will certainly be worth watching the elite of the game try in what is likely to be tough conditions. A lean spell means that Paisley will have to watch golf’s key majors from home in 2021, although he will note that a number of his European Tour contemporaries – including Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Tommy Fleetwood – are among a band of players in The Open odds that could make a concerted run at the Claret Jug. Hatton leads the way with odds of 25/1.
That, you would think, would provide ample inspiration for Paisley moving forward. Additionally, there’s the fact that the slightly elder statesmen of golf have enjoyed a renaissance in recent times.
Richard Bland won his maiden European Tour event in May at the British Masters – it was his 478th start, and came three months after his 48th birthday. A couple of weeks later, the Englishman was leading at the halfway stage of the US Open, too. Lee Westwood has won three times worldwide since turning 40, while 51-year-old Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship in extraordinary circumstances earlier this year.
Evidently, age is no barrier to success in golf, and so any suggestion that Paisley is past his prime can be kicked to the curb. The Geordie is only just getting started.
What Are the Odds?
The betting market for any major event on the PGA or European Tour is diverse and offers a wide range of options to punters: you can wager on who you think will win the tournament, as well as trying your luck in the key finishing positions – top 10/20/40 and so on. A number of the sub-betting markets also attract plenty of interest, and of those, the ‘to be a hole-in-one’ category is certainly worthy of consideration.
They say that the odds of making an ace are around 12,500/1 for the average club golfer, and while at pro-level, the chances of a hole-in-one shorten considerably, the odds of there being two aces in a single tournament are stratospheric.
However, that’s exactly what occurred at the Magical Kenya Open back in March when two European Tour pros hit a hole-in-one on the very same day. Of course one of those pros was Paisley himself, who achieved the memorable feat at the par 3 fourteenth hole and was joined on the roll of honour by Alexander Levy shortly after.
Two players ace same hole, also miss cut at European Tour’s Kenya Open https://t.co/EhEhZb7m20 pic.twitter.com/lqOYgxZpkE
— Golfweek (@golfweek) March 20, 2021
Paisley won’t be there at the Royal St George, but a bevy of English talents will be – wouldn’t it be great to see one of them lift the Claret Jug after 72 holes?