Our very own PGA Professional Harry Trusler is competing in this year’s PGA English Championship, taking place between the 19th July and 21st July 2022 at Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort.
We caught up with Harry at the tournament, to talk about his journey leading up to this moment and his goals for the future.
Be sure to catch him on the course during the tournament and offer him your full support!
I’ve been working at Bowood for around three and a half years now. I previously worked in the hotel as one of the bartenders, but I always wanted to get into golf.
I spoke with Jeff, our General Manager expressed my desire to become a PGA professional and improve my golf game. He was really kind and accommodating, allowing me to use all the practice facilities and the golf course anytime I needed to train. When I started my training in October 2020, I then moved over to the golf department permanently. All the guys in the golf team are fantastic and since then I’ve been loving it!
I’m really looking forward to it, it’s a great event.
Last year was the first time I played, and the feedback that I got from everyone was fantastic. It’s great to see some of the members wandering around, following people, and supporting me, which is really nice.
I’ve been on good form coming into this week so I’m hoping I can kind of bring that into the tournament. It’s obviously my home course so I’d like to think that gives me a bit of an advantage – just don’t hold me to that one! We’ll just have to wait and see until after I’ve played a couple of rounds.
Training for the tournament has simply been about trying to get out and play whenever I can. I try and get at least two to three hours of practice in a day if possible. We’ve got great practice facilities here at Bowood, the Driving Range, Academy Course and of course our Championship Golf Course. Being able to utilise it all has been amazing.
I’ve also been playing in a few local events which have been really fun. Playing with some of the guys from the Wiltshire area and also some of the other assistants from the southwest region.
It was tough for me to have a full day of practice, so I didn’t have as much time to train as I would have liked. It’s difficult to practice when you have a 40-hour work week, and then you have to put in a few more hours training on top. You don’t always have the energy left to do that. Instead, I squeezed in small amounts of practice whenever I could.
Everyone has been super supportive. I get lessons from Gregg who is our Senior PGA Professional, and he’s been assisting me a lot with training and helping me get better.
I’d probably say Justin Thomas or Rory Mcllroy.
Look at Justin Thomas at the PGA Championships – he wasn’t leading going into the final round, but everyone else was falling away and he kept pushing forward and, smashing it out. It’s great!
To be honest, just to play in as many of these events as I can. I haven’t got a huge amount of experience compared to a lot of other people, so for me, it’s just trying to build up that repertoire and experience to play in bigger events and see how I get on.
I would just say come along and experience the tournament, whether you’re a golf member at Bowood, or not. It’s an amazing couple of days, so just come up and enjoy the atmosphere. It’s a great event and you will see some really talented golfers. It’s a lovely course in a beautiful setting. Even if you’re not a golf fan, just pop up and say hello.
To everyone participating, go and enjoy yourselves. I will definitely be out there having fun regardless of the result. But fingers crossed, I can hopefully put a good score together and play well.
On behalf of everyone here at Bowood,
GOOD LUCK, HARRY!
