As the youngest player to win an Official World Golf Ranking event, Josh Hill clearly has game. But it’s the MENA Tour stars’ unflappable demeanour that truly sets him apart

By Kent Gray
Josh Hill is hamming it up for the cameras in a studio just off Dubai’s hectic, 14-lane Sheikh Zayed Road.

While his contemporaries are busy doing what most kids do on Thursday afternoons in the emirate – clock watching at the end of the high school week – the 15-year-old is making deliberate air swings on demand. Like his trademark flat-line demeanour on the golf course, Hill shows no hint of emotion despite being in the midst of an exciting media frenzy that has followed his historic victory at the Al Ain Open the previous afternoon.

The scene is about as far removed from the teen’s natural habitat as he can imagine – “really weird” as he puts. This is the domain of paid fashion models pouting for glossy woman’s magazines, not a 15-year-old amateur golfer who famously requested a feed of fried chicken to celebrate the day of his young life the night before. But Hill is handling the Golf Digest Middle East cover shoot, minus any media handlers or even his parents who are at work, with aplomb. It’s not every day you get your first cover for Golf Digest so he’s happy to swing and smile on request, and to accept the offer of a ride home afterwards. He can drive with the best of them, just not a car and certainly not on the bumper-to-bumper highway in earshot.

RELATED: Prodigy Power: The driver swing that helped Josh Hill wow the golf world

Hill has ticked off countless interviews already and will head to an in-studio radio appearance later in the evening to talk about what it is like to see you name whiz around the planet courtesy of newsflashes from the likes of the BBC, the Golf Channel, Golfweek and ESPN.

“I got loads and loads of messages from friends, fellow competitors and family and there’s lots of people wanting to do interviews as well. It’s been pretty hectic but hopefully it’s what it will be like when I’m older,” Hill said. “It does feel really weird, I don’t know how to do it. It’s a good thing though. I get that.”

There are no guarantees in life, much less golf but it seems Joshua Hill’s career is going to play out before the cameras more and more. In eclipsing Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa as the youngest winner of an Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) event – at 15 years, six months and 27 days old – Hill announced himself to the wider golfing world. It came as no great surprise to those in the Middle East though who have tracked Hill’s steady ascent from promising junior, to scratch handicapper just before his 13th birthday, to serial Emirates Golf Federation title winner and now to MENA Tour champion.

Promising Signs

Joe Marshall sensed something special was afoot when he settled down to read an online preview to the Al Ain Open by Arena on the Monday of the week that changed Hill’s life.

There had been a hint at his star pupil’s return to form in a T-6 finish at the tour’s previous stop in Abu Dhabi a fortnight earlier, Hill’s best result since he heroically scraped on to the circuit despite opening Q-School with a round of 80 in Aqaba. But it was words rather than actions that piqued the interest of the Claude Harmon 3 Performance Golf Academy head coach.

“I won’t be surprised if someone shoots a 59 this week,” Hill told the tour’s media manager, Joy Chakravarty.

While some dismissed the comments as hyperbole from an inexperienced teen coerced into helping provide some column inch filler, Marshall knew better. After all, Hill had carded a 62 at AESGC to capture back-to-back Faldo Series Middle East Championship titles earlier in the year and is the two-time defending champion of the EGF-sanctioned Al Ain Men’s Open. More pertinently, he was talking like the young Hill of old.

“I have said to a few people that I am not surprised at all by the victory, not after how he was feeling that week, how he was talking about the score-ability of the course and all the good quality work he has done, not only this last month but over the last two years,” said Marshall. “It was bound to come together at some point. Still, I guess to actually see him doing it is just incredible, especially in such emphatic fashion.” Emphatic just about does Hill’s closing round at Al Ain Equestrian, Shooting & Golf Club justice, an eight eight-under 62 allowing him to overcome a three-shot overnight deficit to win by two over English pro Harry Ellis.

(Photo by Masam Ali)

Growing Pains

Hill had been battling a low, left miss off the tee throughout his summer in the UK, a campaign Marshall doesn’t sugar coat despite some handy international results for England Boys’ and a T-11 placing at the European Young Masters in the Czech Republic.

“Josh had a very mediocre summer, to put it politely, but this is all part of the journey to becoming the best you can be,” the Dubai-based Yorkshire coach said.

While he never stopped seeking a solution to his misery off the tee, it wasn’t until he returned to Dubai and the tutelage of Marshall that things really started to look up.

The tee ball respite wasn’t before time for the teen whose mood started to match the ugly low hooks that took Hill to the darkest recesses of some of Britain’s finest links, not a place you want to be.

But the Dubai-born and raised teen insists that wasn’t what was getting him down, rather the isolation from his fellow range rats at The Els Club in Dubai. It was okay when he was on international duty with England Golf but the days between tournaments spent practising back at the family base in the small port town of Exmouth, Devon was lonely, as comforting as it was to have mum Jo and sister Francesca to come home to in the evenings.

“I wasn’t enjoying living in England. It wasn’t that I was homesick, it was just I didn’t have any friends I could practice with, there were no fun rounds and the weather and facilities for practice aren’t what we have here in Dubai,” Hill said. “I’ve got heaps of friends in England but they were nowhere near and I get bored quite easily when I can’t do as much as I’d like with everyone around. Toby [Bishop], Arjun [Gupta], Steve Kelbrick [the two-time defending EGF champion], Ali [Claude Harmon fitness guru Allister Parlane] and Joe, all my mates. When I’m with them, I’m happiest.”

That certainly correlates with what Luke Joy, a two-time MENA Tour winner, has seen of Hill.

“I’ve watched him work up at Claude Harmon and he puts the hours in, works hard but does it with a smile on his face,” said the Yas Links-attached English professional. “He seems to have a great approach to his practice, gets his technical work done and then has a playful mindset with his mates around the chipping green. I think that comes with being a teenager and loving golf for the game that it is.”

Of that there is little doubt. A professional career clearly beckons but for now, Hill is just a 15-year-old kid loving life.

“I feel like at the moment I just want to keep playing, having fun. By the time I’m about 17 or 18, we’ll see how I’m going and if I’m good enough to earn a main tour card, I’ll have a go. If not, we’ll look to go through the U.S. college system to develop a bit more.”

He was very quiet and reserved at first but has a cracking personality now.
– Hill’s Coach Joe Marshall

While the past summer was a “big learning curve”, Hill has no doubts he’ll eventually come to grips with the often lonely airport, hotel, golf course and repeat groundhog day that is the existence of the average touring pro. Nor was Marshall ever concerned by his temporary dip in form before the resumption of the MENA Tour’s autumn swing. Rather, he’s impressed with the kid’s ability to rebound so quickly from the lows of his British summer, something Marshall had always anticipated. This is golf, after all.

“All these situations he has experienced so far will make it easier and easier to deal with the pressures that are coming,” Marshall said. “The more he can be exposed to now the better. As a [CH3] team, we will just keep ticking the necessary boxes in the background and let him keep developing as a player, an athlete and a person. He has lots of good people around him that will make the months to come enjoyable ones.

“Let’s face it, he is in a no-lose situation having these opportunities at the age of 15. Time is on his side.”

Among those potential opportunities is a start in January’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic, the prize that awaits the winner of the MENA Tour’s amateur Journey to Jordan standings. Up to second in the order of merit after his Al Ain breakthrough, Hill had the circuit’s final regular-season stop in Ras Al Khaimah to play as we went to press as well as the Nov. 27-29 Tour Championship back at Ayla G.C. in Aqaba as he looked to haul in English OOM leader Curtis Knipes.

“The main goal at the moment is to have him in really great shape for next summer when he will go back to the UK and compete in the likes of British Amateur and British Boys,” Marshall continued. “But I would love to see him qualify for Abu Dhabi [HSBC Championship] or the Desert Classic so he can see where he sits amongst the best in Europe/the World. This isn’t something we’ve spoken about but would be a nice thing if it happens.

“The New Year he will probably play some more MENA events but school work will ramp up from November onwards as he is in his GCSE year. He understands the importance of ticking the education boxes which shows how well-rounded, well-grounded and mature the young lad is.”

(Photo by Masam Ali)

Unflappable

Marshall has seen Hill mature, both physically and emotionally, as their player-coach relationship has developed over the past two years. A growth spurt in the past year, which sees Hill now tower over 6ft tall, accounts for some of his troubles off the tee recently. His swing speed has rocketed from 114mph as a 14-year-old to the most recent measure of 123mph and that, mixed with a still growing body, can be hard to control at times.

There are no such issues with his unflappable temperament, something noted by respected U.S. Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers who saw a video of Hill holing his final putt in Al Ain and surmised: “That’s a pretty calm reaction for someone making history. Talk about acting like you’ve been there before.”

Again, Marshall isn’t surprised by the assessment.

“What does stand him out from the crowd is how chilled and relaxed he always is, both on and off the course…way beyond his years. Nothing seems to faze him and he just accepts the next challenge. To pull a final round like that out of the bag you need to have serious mental toughness and self-belief. I think his comments to me after his victory says a lot about his attitude. He said ‘I should have shot 59 but I don’t care, I won!’ I am going to have the fattest KFC!’”

Hill was “shy and slightly timid” when Chakravarty started working with him as part of the MENA Tour’s self-promoted “Three Musketeers” alongside Bishop and Gupta. “But you can easily sense his confidence once he opens up to you,” says the MENA Tour’s media man.

Hill did just that after his final round 62 at AESGC. “Josh was clearly upset he let go a chance of becoming the first player on the MENA Tour to shoot in the 50s after missing a few chances on the back nine. He just has an insatiable urge to get better,” says Chakravarty.

“During that third round in Al Ain, his playing partner Gustaf Kocken asked him how long he was [off the tee] for a 15-year-old. Josh’s reply was very matter of fact: ‘I am one of the longest 15-year-old in the world.’ He was also asked on Dubai Eye the day after about his long-term plan. Pat came the answer: ‘Win majors’. There was not an iota of boastfulness or dreaminess of a teenager in those two statements. They were delivered with utmost conviction.”

Once more, Marshall can only concur.

He understands the importance of ticking the education boxes which shows how well-rounded, well-grounded and mature the young lad is.
– Joe Marshall

“We have loved watching Josh evolve as a person over the last two to three years at CH3. He was very quiet and reserved at first but has a cracking personality now. If you are around him you can expect a few cheeky comments and remarks, all harmless of course. He even passed comment on my swing during our most recent knock around Trump – it actually helped too.

“We can have a laugh and a joke but he also knows when I am being serious and when I am laying down my thoughts of what needs to be done. He definitely likes it when I give my straight to the point, no-nonsense Yorkshire advice for him to go away and work on.”

And work Hill does. Tirelessly. It’s not that the work ethic is anything extraordinary on the high-quality production line that is the CH3 range at The Els Club but Hill does now face a challenge like few others.

“I will be honest here and say we are all looking forward to how he deals with the added pressure now,” Marshall said. “There is no point hiding from the fact that pressure comes with this kind of achievement. Expectations rise and they have to be dealt with.”

So far, so good. Like any shy teen, Hill struggled to truly articulate the enormity of his achievement in the immediate aftermath but gave the impression he’ll figure it all out in his own quietly confident way.

“It means a lot. Youngest winner on the MENA Tour, very special. A pro win [as an amateur] which is pretty nice and …I don’t know to be honest,” said Hill before another pause to take it all in. “I’ve not really reflected on it because I’ve still got two more events to go and it will be better to reflect on the season after that. It’s about not getting too big headed and trying to finish the season strong.”

The post Meet the MENA Tour’s new Boy Wonder appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

At 15 years, six months and 27 days, Hill has eclipsed Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa for the world record. Ishikawa was 15 years and eight months old when he won the Japan Golf Tour’s Munsingwear Open KSB Cup in May 2007.

RELATED: Sir Nick Faldo, Danny Willett lead tributes as Hill announces himself to the wider golfing world

The Trump International Golf Club, Dubai member has achieved the feat in grand style too, a sensational eight-under 62 at Al Ain Equestrian Shooting and Golf Club helping him turn a three-stroke deficit into an eventual two-shot victory over overnight leader Harry Ellis (ENG).

Josh Hill is our Al Ain Open by Arena champion! He wins by two shots after a superb final round of 8-under par 62.@HarryEllisGolf is second and the leading professional at 15-under par.
Ben Schlottman and amateur Curtis Knipes are T3 at -13. pic.twitter.com/N0y3kENb6N

— MENA Tour (@theMENATour) October 23, 2019

Thailand’s Phachara Khongwatmai holds the record as the youngest winner of a professional event. He was 14-years old when he captured the Singhua Hin Open in July 2013 but the ASEAN PGA Tour event reportedly did not have OWGR status like the MENA Tour. Khongwatmai was seven months younger than the previous record-holder, Kiwi Lydia Ko, who won the New South Wales Open on the Ladies European Tour in January 2012 at age 14.

Hill becomes the fourth amateur winner on the MENA Tour and the second in three events this season after English 18-year-old Robin ‘Tiger’ Williams won the Journey to Jordan-2 Championship at Ayla Golf Club earlier this month. Now U.S.-based Dubai amateur Rayhan Thomas was the regional Pro-Am circuit’s amateur trailblazer after capturing his home Dubai Creek Open in 2016, a season before Dutchman Pierre Junior Verlaar won the Royal Golf Mohammedia Open in Morocco.

The MENA Tour’s remit is to provide a stepping stone to the world’s main tours and it is certainly helping its young members achieve global recognition. Hill’s is not the first world record; Thomas, now playing collegiate golf at Oklahoma State Unversity, equalled the world record for successive birdies – nine – during his defence of the Dubai Creek Open in 2017.

Hill is the 867^th ranked player in the official World Amateur Golf Ranking (WARG) and No 2072 in the professional OWGR. While he isn’t eligible for the winner’s cheque of US$13,500 (Ellis pockets that), both rankings are set to soar after his memorable week at Al Ain where he carded rounds of 65-66-62 for a winning total of 193, 17-under-par.

Amazing feat by young Josh Hill!

Becomes also the 2nd youngest player to ever earn #OWGR points, behind Guan Tian Lang who did it when he was still 14. Josh is tied for 2nd place in that stat. Phachara K. also earned his first OWGR points at 15y 6m 27d!https://t.co/Q7F1mW5nOb

— Nosferatu (@VC606) October 23, 2019

He clearly has an affinity with the par 70 layout in the “Garden City” of Al Ain, a city 170km inland of Abu Dhabi but within the emirate. Hill has won both the Faldo Series Middle East Championship and is the two-time defending champion of the Al Ain Open, and Emirates Golf Federation event, at AEGSC and has now twice shot 62 on the course, the first in last year’s Faldo Series event. The 62 is one shy of the amateur record set by Brazilian Herik Machado during the 2017 Faldo Series Grand Final but eclipse the professional course record at the 6,764-yard layout, a 63 by Alex Wrigley in the Mercedes-Benz International ProAm in February 2017.

Starting the day three shots behind overnight leader Ellis, a 12-footer putt straight into the heart of the cup on the first hole kick-started the teen’s title tilt.

A lip-out on the par-3 3rd from five feet denied him a second birdie, but the Joe Marshall-coached player  went on a tear after that, making four birdies in the next four holes. He then picked up further strokes on the 9th and 11th holes to be seven-under par at that stage and three ahead of Ellis, who had made the turn at one-under par.

The final birdie of the day came on the 14th, even though he had two more chances from close range after that.

“I really don’t know what to say right now. I am shocked,” said Hill afterwards.

“If you had told me during the summer that I will be winning a MENA Tour title against professionals and become the youngest ever winner of an OWGR event, I would have laughed at the notion. I guess hard work pays.”

The win has been brewing. After a lean spell with his driver over his UK summer campaign, the youngest member of the England U-18s squad recorded a T-6 finish at the Abu Dhabi Open a fortnight ago in what had been his best finish in the MENA Tour by Arena until today.

“I was struggling in the summer and then something changed in the last MENA Tour event at Yas Links. That top-10 finish gave me a lot of confidence and I knew it in my heart that I would do well here in Al Ain because I have such a good history here. I just love this track.

“I am actually a little disappointed with my finish because I missed so many opportunities coming in. I honestly could have broken 60 today. I knew I needed a good start, and once I got it, I just kept hitting one good shot after the other.”

The post Dubai amateur Josh Hill sets world record as youngest winner of OWGR event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
Co-leader Harry Ellis described his bogey-free 64 as “nothing special really” while teen Josh Hill, just a shot back after the opening round of the Al Ain Open by Arena, summed up his effort as a “pretty boring round”. Such is the standard on the MENA Tour nowadays.

An eagle on the drivable par-4 4th hole propelled Ellis to his six-under score at Al Ain Equestrian Shooting and Golf Club, a score later matched by Germany’s Constantin Schwierz who mixed seven birdies and a solitary bogey in his 64.

RELATED: Zane Scotland – Mr MENA Tour record-maker turned player creator

Hill and his ‘Three Musketeers’ pal Arjun Gupta were among a group of six a shot adrift, joined by newly minted Abu Dhabi Open champion James Allan, English compatriot Jacob Oakley, American Ben Schlottman and Sweden’s Jesper Alm.

Like Allan, Ellis carried on where he left off at Abu Dhabi a fortnight ago where he finished joint runner-up with countryman Robbie Busher and Swede Niclas Weiland.

The Wentworth Club member turned five-under with the help of the early eagle. His only disappointment, perhaps prompting the “nothing special” comment is that he couldn’t kick on to an even lower score on the par-70 layout.

“The 4th hole really gave a kick start to my round. I hit a three-wood to about eight feet and made the putt. I then picked up three more birdies to go out in 30, but did not give myself too many chances on the back nine,” Ellis said.

“I added one more birdie and did not drop any shots. So, just looking now to take this momentum into tomorrow’s round. Today was solid, but nothing special really. I have been playing well these last few weeks, and when you start shooting in the 60s, it becomes a bit of a habit. I hope it can continue.”

Thank you @theMENATour @HarryEllisGolf for this. You are quite correct we are unique. Fortunate to be working at this wonderful facility @aesgc #alain #golf #equestrian #rugby #cricket #shooting #somethingforeveryone https://t.co/iflaQCWeuW

— Tom Buchanan (@tompro66) October 22, 2019

Schwierz started from the 10th tee and was three-under-par through the turn. A bogey on the second hole was his only hiccup of the day, but he finished strongly with four birdies in five holes from the 4th to the 8th.

Hill, who finished tied sixth in Abu Dhabi, is the reigning Men’s Open champion at Al Ain ESGC and he once again showed his liking for the course with a 65.

“It was a pretty boring round, especially on the back nine. I made a birdie on the par-5 10th, and then played the next seven holes to par. I just kept hitting good shots and two-putted and nothing really happened before a birdie on the 18th,” said the youngest member of England Golf’s U-18 squad.

Issa Abou El Ela, making his first start on the MENA Tour, was one of seven players tied for ninth place at 66 heading into the second round. The Egyptian’s round included an aced on the par-3 15th hole with a pitching wedge from 144 yards.

It was a first hole-in-one in any competition for the 24-year-old and 23rd in the history of the Tour and second of 2019 season following Scot Daniel Kay’s perfect shot in the opening round of the Troon Series – Royal Golf Bahrain Open.

How cool is this?!!

Egypt’s Issa About El Ela (from Madinaty GC) makes his first hole-in-one playing his first ever MENA Tour event!

Issa aced the par-3 15th at @aesgc with a pitching wedge from 144 yards.

He also shot a 66.#HarderBetterFasterStronger pic.twitter.com/3TVSw9E8uj

— MENA Tour (@theMENATour) October 21, 2019

Reigning professional Journey to Jordan leader, South Africa’s MG Keyser, opened with a 67.

The second round started at 7am UAE time.

The post Dubai teens Josh Hill and Arjun Gupta just a shot back after low scoring start to Al Ain Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.