James Morrison was ready for this week to be his last in the world of professional golf. Golf had other ideas.
Morrison, 40, spent 15 years on the DP World Tour, winning twice, before losing his card after last season. He spent this year on the HotelPlanner Tour, but joined in this week The Rolex Grand Finale of HotelPlanner Tour need a good finish to earn at least conditional status on the DP World Tour in 2026. The top twenty finishers earned full tickets for next season, while another ten earned conditional status.
He was ready to walk into the sunset. But a fairytale ending forces him to change his plans.
“When I said this would be my last event, it really was 100 percent,” Morrison told Sky Sports on Sunday after a three-shot victory moved him into sixth place on the development tour points table and guaranteed him a spot on the DP World Tour next season. “This completely ruined that.”
With his 13-year-old son Finley in bag, Morrison fired a seven-under 65 on Saturday to build a three-shot lead. Waking up Sunday, Morrison, content with this week being his swan song, had a different perspective with a win with his son in the bag 18 holes away.
“It’s funny that all week I had that attitude of ‘alright, this could be the last one and I don’t really care,’” Morrison said via The Scot. “But this morning I started to care a little bit and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t where I want to be’. I just tried to dig into the memory bank of years gone by and it worked.”
The nerves got to Morrison early on Sunday. He three-putted the par-5 first and then bogeyed the second. But he steadied himself and then made three birdies in a four-hole stretch, starting at the par-5 11th, to extend his lead to four. But even with a big cushion, Morrison still felt the pressure on the 72nd hole.
“That swing on the last one, I couldn’t feel my arms. It went so far to the right.” After bogeying the last hole, Morrison said he finished at 15 under and won by three. “I’m glad it’s over, let’s put it that way. But no, I played well all week. I didn’t play that well today, but I kind of kept my emotions in check, dug into my memory and into my victories on the DP World Tour. The wind that was blowing really helped me today because I knew that the harder it got, the more it would play into my hands.”
Morrison’s first DP World Tour win came in 2009 as a rookie. He won the 2015 Spanish Open, which was his last victory until winning on the HotelPlanner Tour earlier this season. Despite winning earlier this year, Morrison struggled on the developmental tour this season. He missed nine of his first ten cuts before winning in France. He missed five cuts and had just one top-20 finish in the twelve events since then. He started the week at number 36 in the points standings and had decided that spending another year on the development tour was not in the plan.
Instead, Morrison recorded a fairytale victory with his son on the bag, which meant more than returning to Europe’s top circuit.
“He did great,” Morrison said of his son Finley. “I holed a birdie putt on 11 and he let out a huge sigh. I was like, ‘you nervous buddy’ and he said ‘not really,’ but I think he was feeling, like all of us. He did great and giving him a hug on the 18th green was the most special thing in the world.”
Morrison has made 438 starts on the DP World Tour in his career. Before this week, it seemed like this would be the final count. Now? There’s more to come. How much remains to be seen.
“I don’t have a caddy. I don’t have a tour bag, nothing. I can cancel my email to Waitrose for a job. But we’ll have to wait and see,” Morrison said when asked how much he planned to play in his return to the DP World Tour.
That’s a worry for another day. There would come a day that Morrison didn’t think would come. But as always, four good rounds can change everything.
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