The World Amateur Golf Ranking tell
us that Patrick Cantlay is the No. 1-ranked
amateur on the planet and has been for
almost a year. If you look closely enough,
however, the rankings will show that the
hottest amateur in the world is a young
Australian named Daniel Nisbet. His is an
instructive story.
lete friend and that the bottle was mislabeled. He never tested positive for the substance, nor was he ever accused of using
it. Nonetheless, he did bring it into the
country and was hit with an 18-month ban
from competition for possessing it. The
ban, which could have been for two years,
went from November 2009 to May 2011.
error of his ways and has grown up.
“I learned a lesson the hard way,” he
told me. “It forced me to look a lot closer
at my life, and I have. I put myself in that
position, and I dragged my family and
friends through all of it. I regret that.”
JIM;NUGENT
E-MAIL JIM
Team that will compete in the Trans-Tasman Cup in March. News surfaced that
he was hit with a six-month suspension for
an incident that took place at the Australian Open last November. Nobody is talking
and rumors abound, but the fact is that the
hottest amateur in the world was left off
his national team.
Nisbet has been on a tear during the
2012 summer amateur season down
under. He began the year ranked No. 174,
and has climbed 134 places to No. 40. This
jump was fueled by a second-place finish
at the Master of the Amateurs, followed
a week later by a runner-up finish at the
Australian Amateur, and followed again by
a win at the Lake Macquarie Amateur.
“It’s been a good couple of weeks,” he
said recently, crediting the hard work he
and his teacher, Peter Knight, have put in.
Nisbet, crushed and at first angry,
considered quitting the game. He spent
his time working behind the bar at his golf
club, and eventually grew to accept his
situation. Bartending became a motivator
to get his life and game in order, which
he appears to have done. He returned to
competition at the British Amateur last
summer, played a late summer schedule
in America, and then returned home to
continue to hone his game in the fall. Then
came the explosion of 2012.
Now comfortably among the top 50
amateurs in the world, Nisbet has his
sights set on playing in Great Britain this
spring and early summer before heading
to America this summer. He is pointing toward the British and U.S. Amateur championships. He also hopes to be selected
to represent Australia in the World Team
Amateur Championship in Turkey this fall
before embarking on a pro career.
“Growing up, the Eisenhower Trophy is
what I aspired to qualify for,” he told me. I
find his willingness to wait and roll the dice
on being selected to be admirable and a
sign of maturity.
There is little question among those
who follow amateur golf that Nisbet has
some serious game. He has been a prodigy
since he was a junior, drawing favorable
comparisons to Greg Norman. According to
Knight, the former director of Elite Player
Development for Golf Australia, his biggest
asset is his competitive mindset: “He has
been very clear from a very young age that
he wants to become a great golfer.”
It has been an impressive performance,
but sadly, no matter what Nisbet accom-plishes on the golf course, there will be
whispers about his “past.” Because in
2009, Nisbet made the kind of youthful
mistake that can haunt you in sport for a
very long time.
I spoke with Nisbet during the New
South Wales Amateur, where it appears he
ran out of gas after an intense stretch. He
sounds like a kid who has recognized the
Yet, just when you want to believe,
another head-scratching incident occurs.
Nisbet was left off the Australian National
He was stopped in customs, and
a vitamin supplement was taken
from him. Three months later, it
was revealed that the substance contained
a banned anabolic agent. Nisbet claimed
he purchased it in Canada for a non-ath-
Knight elaborated on the last two years:
“Dan’s time out of the game coincided with
the same time as all young men rapidly
mature emotionally and socially. While he
has undoubtedly learned strong lessons
of the past two years, it is difficult to say
whether those improvements were caused
by the suspension or the natural maturation process.”
Nisbet, 21, a former Australian Junior
champion, was Australia’s No. 1 amateur
in August 2009 as he returned from
a successful trip to North America.
There are two mortal sins in the competitive game – doping and cheating on the
course. It can take a very long time to lose
the scarlet letter associated with incidents
of this kind, whether they are true or not.
It’s classic guilt by association. Here’s hoping that Nisbet learned from his mistakes,
is truly repentant, and that he can then let
his golf clubs do his talking. Because it
looks like they can speak eloquently. l
