It started with an hour-long wait for a table at a Harvester for Thalia Martin.
While waiting for a table in a local restaurant, she took a wander next door to a driving range with her dad. She had no idea that picking up a golf club that day would eventually lead her to the professional game.
Five years after turning professional, Martin is now making her name on the LET Access Series and has already made her debut on the Ladies European Tour.
But golf wasn’t supposed to be her career. Tennis was.
“I first saw the range when I was waiting for a table at a place called Harvester, which many English people would know,” she told us, speaking on her first memory of golf. “When I tell this story in another country, they’re like, ‘What place?’ It was an hour until the table was ready, which is quite surprising at that time, and next door was just a driving range.
“So I popped over to kill time with my dad and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I just remember there was this machine that golf balls were coming out of, and I thought, ‘that’s really weird.’ People were collecting them and then just went to hit them like in a field.
“I just remember that being my first experience of golf properly because when I was in primary school, there was this guy that played golf and I always thought, ‘Oh, why are you playing that silly game?’ because I love running about, so I never really got interested in it at an earlier age.
“But that was my first memory, a driving range next to that restaurant, and that was where it all started.”
Every athlete remembers their first pair of boots in football or their first racket in tennis, so what was Thalia’s first club she ever used?
“It was a five iron, actually,” she beamed with a smile, explaining the choice. “I remember that because I just couldn’t get it up in the air. So, it was quite an odd choice for me to have a five iron as my first club to hit.
“But I just loved it. I loved it. It just kept on going straight, but very, very low. I didn’t know what it was at this time, but it was like a low eiger stinger, as they say in the golfing world.
“But yeah, I just remember that five iron, low ones. One of the coaches there picked up on my swing and just wanted to work with me. And my dad’s like, ‘Yes, please,’ because he really wanted me to be in golf, just because he knows what benefits golf has.”
Credit: Nordic Golf Tour/LETAS
Needing a ‘plan B’
Although the exposure to golf for the first time took Thalia’s interest, tennis remained her priority in her teenage years before an injury in her early-20s quickly forced a career change, which all led towards the path of golf.
“I was forced, really, by my tennis injury,” she added. “So I was determined to keep competing in tennis. But I had an injury at the age of 20; I was trying to work on it with my serve, and it was just serving that was causing the issue.
When asked about how she got started in tennis, Thalia added: “I was just finishing primary school when I was around 12 years and beforehand I was into football, but back then there wasn’t really anything for girls in football.
“So I changed into individual sports and my parents introduced me to tennis – and it was perfect. I loved running about so it just became my new obsession.”
Finding her ‘new obsession’
When her injury struck in tennis, bringing an end to her ambitions to pursue a career in that sport, that could have marked the end of her sporting journey overall.
Instead, it opened the doors for something completely different.
Despite the disappointment in her first few months of university to realise that tennis could not become full-time, she turned those emotions into determination and began her journey in golf.
“I said to my mum and dad, I was like, ‘ok, well, I need a plan B.’ So I’ll go to university for a sports science degree, specifically in golf, and whilst I’ll try and fix my injury and still be able to train at a local tennis area at my university.
“Even in the first month of university, I was still determined to try and do tennis,” she added. “But yeah, after a month in, I was like, ‘there’s no way.’ I just couldn’t do it anymore. After that, then I realised, ‘ok, what are my options?’
“I talked to my tutors at the university there, told them my story, and they were like, ‘Well, if you like to keep on competing, we’ve got all the facilities here to try and make you as good as you can be and we’ll see from there.’ So that’s the starting point where the new dream flipped, and I was like, ‘OK, new obsession,’ which is golf.”
“I had some junior coaching where we were just going through, ‘Oh, what handicap were you at certain ages?’ and we found out that I was a five handicap when I was 21. So, it was a quick jump, but no, I got serious at university in the end.”
Paving her way into professional golf
Enrolling at Myerscough College to study a sports science degree in golf allowed Thalia to take her new obsession and turn it into a new reality, using facilities and knowledge around her to develop her skills even faster.
“So, I did the coaching and performance side; you can do sports management or coaching and performance in golf, so I was learning about golf and how to teach people golf.
“That taught me a lot as well about how I can teach myself as well, how to keep myself accountable as well, doing swings or practice and stuff, so it really helped.
“It was just 24-7 golf, in my opinion, for those three years because in classes, it was about golf. Outside of classes, it’s still about golf. We had all the facilities at my doorstep as well.
“And you choose whether or not you train or how much you do. We had the gym as well there, so it was all down to you. They can guide you, but it’s up to you whether you want to use the facilities or not.”
