Mgolf: From across the pond — Daniel Sutton’s journey to Idaho

Cold, wet and windy — not the most ideal conditions for playing golf, especially when trying to impress upward of 35 college golf coaches.

At the 2013 British Boys Amateur Championship, Daniel Sutton was trying to do just that.

Last year, Sutton was named the Big Sky Conference Freshman of the Year.

Except there was one problem — only one coach showed up to his early morning tee time at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.

“I remember the first round,” said Sutton, who is now a sophomore on the Idaho men’s golf team. “It was really wet and really windy. My dad said to me before the round, ‘You’ll know which coaches are interested in you by which ones are on the first tee at 7 o’clock in the morning.'”

Idaho coach John Means was the lone coach watching Sutton tee off on that miserable morning, and he remembers it vividly.

“Yeah it was a shitty day,” Means said with a laugh. “It was cold, probably 43, 44 degrees.

“Typical England kind of weather … I watch him tee off and he stripes it right down the middle, then knocks it up on the green and putts in for a birdie.”

The second hole, a dogleg right, didn’t go as well for Sutton. Means said he knocked his drive into the rough, which was thick, 2-foot grass.

“It’s buried in the bottom of this grass,” Means said. “The ball landed about 10 feet from me, and I had to look for it for a couple of minutes before I could find it.”

Sutton went on to take a huge hack at the ball, but it only went about two feet, Means said. He would go on to take a seven for the hole, but that didn’t deter the Idaho coach, who had traveled to England to specifically watch Sutton play.

“He had a beautiful golf swing,” Means said. “I saw it on video before, but seeing it in real life is a whole different deal … I really liked the way he handled himself when he made that seven. He didn’t get upset at all.

“I thought to myself, ‘As good as he hits the ball, if I can get him to get the ball in the hole a little bit quicker, he’ll be really good.”

Growing up

Sutton hails from Birmingham, England, where he said he first picked up a golf club when he was about 3 years old.

As a 5-year-old, Sutton said he became a member at the Walsall Golf Club, located on the outskirts of Birmingham in the town of Walsall, where he is still a member to this day.

“It’s changed a lot over time,” Sutton said. “The trees are a lot bigger now than what they were. It’s a nice, tight course now. It was a bit more open when I was younger, but I didn’t hit the ball anywhere back then, so it didn’t matter.”

Sutton said he remembers walking around with his dad, Adrian Sutton, and watching him play. When he was old enough, it was his dad doing the watching.

“When I was younger, I remember my dad carrying my bag because I wasn’t big enough to carry it,” Sutton said.

Due to the Walsall Golf Club’s expensive fees, Sutton said his dad sacrificed his membership so he and his sister could keep their memberships.

“He’s done a lot for me,” Sutton said.

Golf runs in the family, as Sutton’s sister is planning on coming to the United States to play golf and go to college. “She’s not quite to my level yet,” Sutton joked.

The journey to Idaho

It wasn’t long after he first picked up a golf club that his dad Adrian started to see his son’s potential.

“I knew what Daniel’s ability was in this country, but didn’t really know how he compared with people around the world because he never really played anywhere else but the UK,” Adrian said.

Sutton started playing in prestigious tournaments at the age of 12, which is where he first heard about the possibility of playing college golf in the United States.

“That’s what I tried to work towards,” Sutton said. “I heard about (playing college golf in the U.S.) at a young age, and that’s been my dream, because that’s all I’ve done my whole life — play golf.”

In England, Sutton said sports and school are usually separate from one another. Therefore, it’s becoming a popular trend for golfers from England to take their talents stateside.

Not knowing where to start, Sutton and his dad enlisted the help of Pro Dream USA, a recruiting agency that helps young golfers from England get matched up with a college in the U.S.

“All the process of the recruiting, it was sort of all new to us anyway because we didn’t totally understand what went on and everything,” Adrian said.

With the help of the recruiting agency, Sutton was put in contact with Means.

“He responded to every email that Daniel sent,” Adrain said of Means. “He was the first one that Daniel emailed, and he responded almost right away.”

Means said he watched video of Sutton, which intrigued him enough to prompt him to take a trip to England to watch Sutton play in the 2013 British Boys Amateur Championship.

After the tournament ended, Sutton said he and his dad went to dinner with Means, where they spent three hours talking to the coach.

Means said he was looking to recruit three players, and one of them he wanted to be an impact player.

“I remember Means looked at Daniel and said ‘Do you know which one you are?'” Adrian said. “And we both just looked at each other and said ‘We don’t know.’ We just didn’t know he was that good.”

Means said he was sold after seeing Sutton play in person, and all that was left was for the player to visit Moscow to see if he’d fit in with the team.

“I was sold. I thought I could make this kid really good,” Means said. “So he came up on his visit and the guys liked him … They trust me to do my job and their job is to tell me whether or not he’s going to be a good fit.

“After he left (Moscow), the very next day I called him up and offered him a scholarship,” Means said.

The transition

Sutton said his favorite individual moment so far at Idaho was his second place finish at Palm Valley last year. Second place at Palm Valley. “I can remember almost every shot I played that round,” he said.

“I’m pretty laid back and I was quite looking forward to moving out from home,” Sutton said. “Even though it’s the other side of the world, I looked at it as the same if I was moving to the other side of England — I’m not going to be at home.”

Sutton was looking forward to the challenge, but his first semester on campus was harder than he expected.

“Kids from England, or the other side of the pond, everything is so new to them,” Means said. “They’re trying to fit in, they’re trying to understand the language, they’re trying be able to communicate with people. There’s so much going on, that golf kind of takes a back seat.”

Despite both countries speaking the English language, there is still a large communication gap.

“There is a language barrier,” Sutton said. “Before, people found it really hard to understand me. So now I learned to speak a lot slower from when I first came here.”

With the language barrier and adjustment to the college lifestyle, Means said it took time for Sutton’s golf game to come around last year.

Means said golfers have to take time and put in extra practice sessions to be able to compete at a high level.

“Dan didn’t do that last fall,” Means said. “He just came to practice … There was no extra things, but in the spring time that changed and he got better quick. It took him three months, and then last spring he was dominant.”

Sutton said he enjoys playing golf in America compared to the bump-and-run style they play in England due to the strong winds.

“People say ‘You should be used to playing in the wind,'” Sutton said. “Yeah, I’m used to it, but I don’t enjoy it any more than anyone else. The weather is a lot better over here. Like when we play in Arizona here, it’s 90 degrees, no wind, blue skies — it’s completely different here.”

Sutton’s golf game has transitioned well, and has led him to a lot of success in a short amount of time, including winning the Big Sky Conference Freshman of the Year award last year.

The distance between the two countries hasn’t stopped Sutton’s dad from watching his son play — even if it is refreshing a computer screen.

“I find it quite nerve-racking,” Adrian said. “I have to stay up really late sometimes … I don’t like going to bed not knowing how well he’s doing — or how bad. You want him to do well … but I get a bit anxious sometimes, not knowing what’s going on … but I think it’s the right place for him to be.”

Korbin McDonald can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @KorbinMcD_VN

Photo by: Tess Fox