David Amm proved that he is one of the most exciting junior golf prospects emerging from the country after he scooped two awards at the Zimbabwe Golf Awards at Country Club last month.
By Munyaradzi Madzokere
The star golfer bagged the best Male Junior Golfer of the Year 2015 and the Most Improved Golfer of the Year awards to cap a memorable year in which he has already won three tournaments.
Amm is also primed to represent the country, together with Ben Follet-Smith and possibly Kieran Vincent, at the Eisenhower Trophy after it emerged that United States-based star Sean Crocker has college commitments.
This year’s edition of the Eisenhower Trophy will be held in Riviera Maya, Mexico from September 21 to 24.
“It means a lot for me to win these two awards. To win the most improved male award is a great feeling because I’ve been putting a lot of hard practice on my game over the past few months,” Amm added.
“I was a bit disappointed for not winning the best amateur award, but taking the positives, it gives me something to work towards and hopefully come back next year and win that award,” the 17-year-old Chapman golfer added.
“I am very happy with how my game has improved over the years and a lot of credit is due to my coach Roger Baylis who spends countless hours helping me improve.
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“I just recently shot the course record 65 at my home Chapman Golf Club, which gives me a great boost of confidence going into the future.”
At the age of 14, Amm became Zimbabwe’s youngest ever participant at the 2014 Golden Pilsener Zimbabwe Open and has since grown in leaps and bounds in his development as a golfer.
Amm confirmed his place in the Zimbabwe team for the Eisehower Trophy, the ultimate biennial world amateur team golf championship, after finishing first on the local qualification standings.
“It is a tournament that I have definitely wanted to play in and having qualified for it this year, I am very excited and I’m really looking forward to it,” he said.
Having been dominant in junior tournaments, Amm won his first amateur tournament at the Hillside Masters in September last year before winning the Players Championships.
This year he has already won the Dugmore Trophy at the beginning of the year, The Mawegu Amateur championship and most recently, the Chapman Grand Slam where he broke the course record, shooting a round of 65.
“Simply put, my ultimate goal is to play on the lucrative Professional Golfers Association [PGA] tour and rub shoulders with the best golfers in the world,” he said.
Amm started playing golf about six years ago at the expense of his passion in cricket mainly because he was home-schooled and this meant that it was difficult for him to play team sports.
His father Rowland Amm could not hide his joy at his son’s achievements.
“As a father, I am very proud. David works really hard and it’s wonderful to watch him grow and exercise his talents. He has been very disciplined in training and now he is enjoying the fruits of his works,” Rowland said.
“He has a great group of people around him, a great coach and mentor in Baylis and has got a great bunch of friends in golf.
“The sky is the limit for him and I believe he has a great future,” he added.
Rowland also spoke about how his son ended up being a golfer.
“We home-schooled our children and it has always been a problem to get them into team sports like soccer in cricket,” he said.
“David was a very keen cricketer but we couldn’t get him into anything meaningful so we came across some advert by the Mashonaland Junior golf association for some clinics happening at Sherwood Gold Club.
“Pam, his mother, took him along and he never looked back since then.”
