Living the dream: Riley Fleming

Riley Fleming, 20, is granted conditional status on the PGA Tour Canada.

In the middle of his exhaustive daily practice session at his home course, Collicutt Siding Golf Club in Airdrie, Alberta, in the scorching central Alberta sun, 20-year-old Riley Fleming stopped to take a media phone call to discuss his new full-time job—the job he’s been dreaming of since he first picked up a golf club.

Having been granted conditional status on the PGA Tour Canada after his May 2014 Q-School performance at Crown Isle on Vancouver Island, Fleming has officially become a professional golfer after spending years on the amateur circuit and making the decision to cut short his varsity athletic career at the University of Texas (Arlington), which he was attending under a full-ride golf scholarship.

After his 1-over total of 289 for the week at Crown Isle, Fleming joined 13 other Canadians to receive tour cards (albeit not at fully-exempt status) at the final qualifying event of the year before the season begins, and is embarking on his dream of professional golf with confidence in his game and the support of those around him.

Amateur career

When you look at Fleming’s meteoric rise through the amateur ranks of Canadian golf, leading up to him receiving the 2012 Order of Merit from Alberta Golf, winning back-to-back Alberta Amateur Golf Championships (2012 and 2013), the 2013 Alberta Open Championship, as well as finishing with a T-13 finish at the 2013 Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship at the Royal Colwood Golf Club in Victoria, B.C., it’s easy to see why he’s decided to move his career to the next level.

After all, anyone who can come from nine strokes behind going into the final round of a tournament like the Alberta Amateur Championships to win by one to retain the title should certainly be considering the opportunity to get paid to golf.

It’s also been the only thing on his mind for a very long time.

“I was 11 when I played my first tournament, paired with the pro at the time,” he said. “We tied for the win and lost in a playoff, and I liked it so much I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Despite a team event being the one that spurred his love for golf, Fleming said it’s mainly the independent nature of the sport itself that drove his devotion to the game.

“There’s something about not relying on anybody else, you know? You just play, and if you’re the best, you’re going to win, and if you’re not the best, you’re not going to win. You’re either going to win or lose because of what you do,” he said.

Although Fleming’s skill set came to him early, he’s worked hard to improve it to get to where he is today.

“I won my fair share of junior events,” he said, but pointed out that he never relaxes in terms of development—he never thinks he’s “good enough.” It’s been his work ethic and desire to improve in order to one day play at the highest level that drove those skills to new heights.

“I don’t give up days of practice to have fun,” he said when asked what he does other than golf,  “I practice every day until dark, basically,” which tells you something about his dedication to the game.

A short stay in Texas

When Fleming headed for Arlington, Texas, after receiving a full golf scholarship, he’d hoped it would be the launching pad for his golf career. Being able to play year-round, learning under a top-tier coaching team, and competing against some of the best amateur golfers in the world is what he’d always hoped he’d be doing when he turned 19.

Instead, he found disappointment and frustration.

“I came in thinking that I was going to get better and be able to focus on golf,” he said. “It wasn’t anything like what I’d really hoped for. I wasn’t really interested in having to focus on school, and I underestimated how much work they expected me to do in the classroom.”

Not only were the academic expectations high, according to Fleming, but the top-tier coaching that he’d been hoping for didn’t mesh with his style of play, either, and he felt it was doing more harm than good in terms of developing his game.

“He (head coach Jay Rees) didn’t like the way I play golf,” said Fleming. “He grew up playing a different way. He played very conservative, and obviously I don’t … I play very aggressively and go at everything, so we clashed heads, and it just wasn’t a very good environment for me.”

He also missed the support he’d had around him in Alberta, so he said it was actually a fairly easy decision to leave school to come back to that support and turn pro in order to join the Canadian tour.

“I’m lucky to have a lot of great friends and family (in Alberta) that follow me and are wishing the best for me,” he said. “It wasn’t like that (in Texas). I was on my own and didn’t have the positive mindset or positive thoughts that you need to have when you’re trying to play top-level golf.”

There’s a small pang of nostalgia for Texas still there, though, as Fleming found what could be considered his second love while he attended UT Arlington.

“In Texas I really got into bass fishing, which is definitely now one of my favourite hobbies, and obviously up here is a little difficult,” he said with a laugh. “There’s not a lot of bass in Alberta.”

Moving forward

Although Fleming only has conditional status on the Canadian tour, meaning, in his words, he’s “just further down on the pecking order to get into the tournament, so I get in if there’s enough spots for me to get in,” he can also show up on the Monday before each tournament and try to earn one of the qualifying spots on offer for each week’s event.

So he’ll start with that, and be happy for the opportunity, he said, at least for the events that are a reasonable driving distance from home.

“I’m not hell-bent on chasing the tour across the country out to Ontario just for a Monday qualifier,” he said. “It’s my first year on tour. I’m not even 21 yet. I can patiently wait and go down and play (in the U.S.) later in the year,” where the season is obviously much longer, if he feels he wants to play more at that point.

In terms of setting goals, he’s cautiously (but confidently) optimistic at this stage of his career. He knows he’s good enough to be out there playing at the top level, but he’s realistic in his approach to that.

“I just want to get as many starts as I can and start making cuts and go from there,” he said. “I won’t be happy until I’m on top of the leaderboard, but for right now, I’m focused on getting into events and we’ll see where it goes from there.”