CARLY BOOTH CARRIES THE BURDEN OF GREAT EXPECTATIONS

"I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DO MUCH BETTER IN MY FIRST TWO YEARS ...."

FROM THE SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

By Paul Forsyth

CARLY Booth is willing to concede that a golf career is more difficult to carve out than she had anticipated. The Perthshire teenager is not the first to encounter problems with the transition to professionalism, but after a childhood in which she was led to believe that the world was at her feet, the reality has come as a rude awakening. "I thought I was going to do much better in my first two years," she admits.

Such is the lot of the child prodigy. Booth was a club champion at 11, played in a pro-am with Sandy Lyle just a year later and became the youngest woman ever to represent Great Britain and Ireland in the Curtis Cup but, when she joined the paid ranks last year - a stressful enough step for any young player chasing their dream - there was the added burden of expectation.
Booth has been a victim of her own success. With sponsors and media lining up to record the immediate fulfilment of her potential, her struggle to adjust has come as a disappointment.
Last year, her first on the Ladies European Tour, she finished 98th on the money list, missing the cut in ten of her 19 events. This year has been no easier, with only two pay cheques from nine outings.
At the age of just 19, these are not statistics that Booth should beat herself up about but she can't help it. The putts that were once a bonus are now needed to make a living. The scores that used to take people by surprise have become the barometer by which she is judged. And the more she tries, the harder she finds it to replicate the form that came so easily as an amateur.
"You put too much pressure on yourself," she explains. "You almost try too hard and, when you try too hard in golf, that's when things fall apart. It's been a slow start to my professional career, but a lot of it is in my head. I've been playing really well in practice but, when I try to trust my swing in a tournament round, more and more doubts come into my mind."
Her sponsors are both a blessing and a curse. Managed by IMG, she has deals with Nike and Audi, and is an ambassador for Aberdeen Asset Management. Financially, they take a weight from her shoulders but, on the other hand, she is anxious about letting them down. This week, she will be performing in front of a home audience in the Aberdeen Ladies Scottish Open at Archerfield, East Lothian. Tellingly, her 13th place in the same event four years ago, when she was a 15-year-old amateur, is still her best finish in a pro tournament.
"The jump from amateur to professional involves so much. You're trying to make a living. Your results determine how much money you earn, you have sponsors to satisfy and you're pushing yourself to perform. When you miss cut after cut, it starts to build up, and that's when you start trying too hard and thinking too much." Not so long ago, Booth was compared to Michelle Wie, which has turned out to be one of the Scottish media's more prescient observations. The Hawaii-born American is on a different level altogether from Booth but the career pattern is similar. Wie turned professional a week before her 16th birthday, but the hype was too much for her to deal with. Only now, at 21, has she been allowed to find her level.

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