Golf safari paying off for Cockerill

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/11/2020 (1755 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You have to go way back into the past — nearly two decades — to find the last time a Manitoba golfer had the kind of professional success Aaron Cockerill is enjoying.

While Selkirk’s Glen Hnatiuk made a name for himself as a homegrown PGA Tour regular in the early 2000s, it may be a case of out of sight, out of mind for many local sports fans when it comes to Cockerill, who was born in Teulon and now calls Winnipeg home but is rarely there. The 28-year-old two-time Manitoba golfer of the year has spent the past two years playing on the European Tour, a somewhat small fish in a big, far-away pond if you will.

That could be about to change. Cockerill is coming off the best performance of his professional career, a tie for fourth Sunday at the Joburg Open in Johannesburg, South Africa, which led to the biggest payday of his career — a cool $62,000 Cdn. To put that in perspective, he made a grand total of $37,000 playing in 37 MacKenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada tournaments while grinding it out in the Great White North between 2015 and 2018.

That, folks, is what kids these days call “making bank.” Throw in the fact he’s jumped to 391st on the World Golf Rankings — he was 2,042nd at this time two years ago — and Cockerill is starting to put himself on the map.

“I’m getting closer and closer,” Cockerill said during a phone conversation on Monday, shortly after he’d completed the four-hour drive through the South African countryside to this week’s tour stop, the Alfred Dunhill Championship in Malelane.

Cockerill reported seeing plenty of elephants and lions on the journey — but no sign of the monkey he nearly got off his back in the form of a tournament victory. After rounds of 64 and 68 on Thursday and Friday, Cockerill began play Saturday in the final group. He stalled a bit with an even-par 71, then fired a 68 on Sunday to finish six strokes off the lead.

“It’s a huge confidence boost,” Cockerill said of the showing, in addition to a significant boost to his finances that gives him breathing room after basically living week-to-week for so long.

“It’s fun to be in the mix and try to make them remember me playing over here a little bit.”

The men’s professional golf scene in Canada is having a banner year, with the big four of Corey Conners, Adam Hadwin, Mackenzie Hughes and Nick Taylor all in the top 100 at one point earlier this season, the first time that’s happened. They get most of the headlines, along with older stars such as Mike Weir and the oft-injured Graham DeLaet, because they play on the much more familiar PGA Tour.

Cockerill chose a less conventional route by going overseas, earning his card through European Tour qualifying school and getting to be both an athlete and wide-eyed globetrotting tourist in the process. His adventures got even better when his fiancée Chelsea Scrivener joined him last month for the final stretch of this season, which has included tournaments in Scotland, Italy and Cyprus before the latest trek through South Africa.

She’s both his companion inside the tour’s strict COVID-19 bubble, which basically contains them to the golf course and hotel, and his caddie. And it can’t be a coincidence that Cockerill has had three Top 25 finishes since Scrivener picked up his bag.

“It’s funny, everyone on tour is always joking about that. Maybe there’s something to it. It’s fun having her here with me. Especially with COVID-19 and bubbles and everything, it’s nice just to have someone to hang with off the golf course so you’re not by yourself with nothing to do,” said Cockerill, who gets a rapid test every Monday with the results coming four hours later.

“On the golf course, I kinda have gotten to this point for the most part on my own. I feel like I know how to play golf and pull the right clubs. She does help me with some of the golf stuff, but a lot of it is just talking to me about something other than golf as we’re on the course.”

The couple’s plan to get married in August in Niverville was scrubbed owing to the pandemic and they now plan to try again next summer — although Cockerill joked that’s dependent on “her not being sick of me by then.” They bought a new house in Winnipeg this fall but haven’t had a chance to settle in yet, other than a quick pit-stop for two weeks of quarantine in late September.

After participating in two events left on the 2020 calendar — a third could happen if Cockerill can climb inside the Top 60 on tour and qualify for the final event next month in Dubai — they’ll be heading home for about a month to enjoy the holidays, albeit under unique circumstances given the current code-red situation in the province. Cockerill plans to stay sharp by working out at his home gym, hitting balls into a net in his garage using his TrackMan and rolling out a putting green before the 2021 season resumes in mid-January.

As for trying to follow in the footsteps of Hnatiuk and cracking the PGA Tour, his dream before life took him on an unexpected detour, Cockerill has set that goal aside for now.

“To be honest, I haven’t really thought of it,” said Cockerill. “For the time being we’re having a blast. I love playing on this tour. And the hard work is starting to pay off.”

You can’t blame him for that, when the road he’s travelling is as scenic and successful as this one is shaping up to be.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg