Australian Open: Anthony Quayle keen to follow Jason Day’s footsteps

As a child, Anthony Quayle found it difficult to envisage places like The Australian Golf Club.

Anthony Quayle splashes out of sand during his opening round at The Australian Golf Club yesterday. Picture: AAP

As a child, Anthony Quayle found it difficult to envisage places like The Australian Golf Club.

“I grew up in a small town called Gove (in the Northern Territory),” Quayle said yesterday.

“The nearest town was a nine-hour drive on a corrugated dirt road. You needed a snorkel and a four-wheel drive to get through two rivers.

“It was in the middle of nowhere. About 3000 people lived there. Nobody in my family plays golf. I used to ride my bike past a golf course on the way to school.

“When I was six I wrote a wishlist for my birthday. I got a set of Looney Tunes golf clubs. There were five golf clubs. I got started.

“I couldn’t go to the golf course all the time and it was too heavy to ride my bike. So I used some old bake bean tins and make a six-hole golf course around my house.

“I used to use the rain funnels as one of the holes. My parents never pushed me. It was always my own motivation and passion to do it which is good.”

From humble and somewhat remote beginnings — Gove had no McDonalds, no cinema and the only fast food was a pizza shop that charged like a wounded bull — Quayle yesterday found himself sharing the leaderboard at the Australian Open with some of the sport’s heavyweights, among them Jason Day.

LEADERBOARD

At one stage during his opening round, Quayle was in a tie for the lead at seven-under par. He stumbled over his final few holes, but still signed for a four-under par 67, good enough for a place in the top 10 as the afternoon players got caught in the swirling breeze.

Significantly, Quayle’s name appeared on the leaderboard alongside Day. As Day grew up idolising and attempting to match the achievements of 14-time major winner Tiger Woods, Quayle, now 23, spent his formative years eyeing off Day’s litany of records.

The pair are separated by seven years but both attended Hills International School on Queensland’s Gold Coast, where Day’s achievements dominated the honour boards.

For much of yesterday’s opening round, Quayle occupied a loftier position than Day on the only board that really mattered heading into the national championship — the leaderboard.

By day’s end, Day had edged his younger compatriot as he made a promising start to his Open assault with a five-under par 66.

“When I went to boarding school and started hearing about Jason — I always wanted to be a professional golfer but that’s when I started to see what I had to do to get there,” Quayle said.

“We were always told about Jason when we were growing up and we wanted to be like Jason. I guess you could say he was a childhood hero growing up, seeing all the records he had at school.

“We just wanted to try to beat them or do whatever we could. It was pretty cool going to the same school. I have a couple of the same trophies he has.

“It has probably been my biggest claim to fame for a little while — I went to the same school as Jason Day.”

Yesterday gave Quayle a taste of what awaits should he make his mark on the big stage. His professional career is only in its nascent stages but he has already come a long way from Gove.

He still holds the course record at the local nine-hole venue, which is built on a swamp and spends four months underwater during the rainy season.

Those days are long gone. Now based on Queensland’s Gold Coast, Quayle showed yesterday he has the game to mix it with the biggest names in the sport.

Suddenly, the eyes of the golfing world would be on him. Not that Quayle is phased by the prospect of being centre of attention. He has confronted much worse.

“We used to go camping most weekends,” he said.

“You would shine the flashlight out onto the beach and you would see all the red eyes (of the crocodiles) looking back. (Galleries) looking at me is not too bad.