Tony Johnstone defends his Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters title this week, 12 months after capturing an emotional victory in front of his family at Woburn Golf Club.
The Zimbabwean held off the challenge of Australian Peter Senior by one stroke to capture a second European Senior Tour title since being told he would never play golf again.
After being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, Johnstone undertook a revolutionary drug treatment and returned to the game to win the Jersey Seniors Classic in 2008 before adding the Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters title last year.
It was his first success over the magnificent Duke’s Course at Woburn after a number of near misses over the years, notably in the 1992 British Masters when he lost a play-off with Christy O’Connor Jnr.
The victory also helped the 54 year old to a career high seventh on the Senior Tour Order of Merit – equalling his best campaign on The European Tour in 1992, the year he won the flagship PGA Championship at Wentworth Club.
“I am really looking forward to going back to Woburn – it is a place that I really love and have been going there for a long time over the course of my career,” said Johnstone. “The win there last year was really special, I had most of the family there to enjoy it and it was a great event.
“Woburn is one of the great venues we have on the tour – it is a wonderful place and so many of the guys have been going there throughout their whole careers that we have a real affinity with the place. There are a lot of great memories of the place and that has an effect on the tournaments we play there on the Senior Tour.”
Johnstone will be hoping a return to Woburn sparks an improvement in his form after a largely disappointing campaign so far by his own standards, managing only two top ten finishes.
“I am hopeful of putting up a good defence but I have to get the putter working first,” he admitted. “The thing has not been working all season and I have to say that because of that I have had a pretty bad year. It’s been pretty frustrating because the game is there, the ball striking is there and all of that but I just haven’t been able to get the ball in the hole.
“I’m working on it but I just have to be patient and hope it will come back to me – I’m not one for seeking a quick solution, those days are behind me, I just have to wait and hope at my age!”
Aiming to deny Johnstone a successful defence will be the latest Senior Tour champion Barry Lane. The five-time European Tour winner captured his maiden title in the Cleveland Golf/Srixon Scottish Senior Open and will be looking to add the Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters to the British Masters crown he won in 2004.
Another Englishman targeting the title and a piece of history is Carl Mason, who is tied with compatriot Tommy Horton as the leading all time Senior Tour winner with 23 victories.
Mason is the only two-time winner of the Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters, having previously captured the trophy in 2006 and 2007.
Also competing for the lion’s share of the £260,000 prize fund will be Sam Torrance and Ian Woosnam, who will each attempt to become the second former Ryder Cup Captain to win the title after Mark James in 2005.
Making his Senior Tour debut on a sponsor’s invitation is former two-time Amateur Champion Gary Wolstenholme, who turned 50 on August 21.
England’s most capped amateur golfer is the leading all-time leading points scorer for the Great Britain & Ireland team and also famously defeated Tiger Woods in the 1995 Walker Cup.
