
In the musty, men-only members’ bar of the oldest golf club in England, surrounded by plaques bearing the names of champions dating back to 1796, stood a 22-year-old woman in a figure-hugging dress who could represent the future of the sport. As juxtapositions go, it was spectacular.
But Maria Verchenova was in her element. As the sole Russian player on the Ladies European Tour (LET), and one of only three Russian women active in the professional ranks, she is no stranger to breaking down barriers. With a smile, the sceptical old guard at the Royal Blackheath Golf Club in London were won over and two centuries of convention forgotten.
Verchenova’s path into golf has been remarkable. Russia had three courses before 2006, with only one boasting 18 holes and all three the reserve of the affluent elite. For a sports-mad girl from Moscow, tennis was the natural choice, but a trip west changed everything.
“My dad took me to the Czech Republic when I was 12 and we went for a coffee at a golf club,” Verchenova said. “The next day we went back and I tried hitting a few balls with a local coach. He said I had a talent for the game and I should play. When I got back we went to Moscow City Golf Club and that’s how I started.
“I didn’t even know what golf was when I was young because my family was poor and everybody in Russia is focused on tennis. But thanks to my parents I was given a chance.”
Verchenova’s trajectory was steep. In 2004, aged 18, she won the Russian Amateur Championship and the next year secured victories at the Latvian and Slovenian Amateur Championships. By the time she won the Russian title again in 2006, Verchenova was ready for a second run at the LET Qualifying School, having fallen short in 2005.
“I remember telling my mum I had no idea what I would do with my life if I failed,” she said. “But somehow I made it through the first stage and when it came to the final I felt relaxed. Suddenly it was over and I had my card. I couldn’t believe it.”
Verchenova struggled in her first full year on the circuit, banking a mere €13,285 (now about £11,200) and achieving only one top-ten finish, at the Wales Championship. Homesick and feeling increasingly alone as the only Russian on tour, she was forced to return to the final stage of the school to retain her card.
It was an experience that may prove the making of her. This season a hardened Verchenova took on a new coach and began to realise the potential she showed a decade ago in the Czech Republic. A fifth-place finish at the Tenerife Open in June has propelled her to earnings of just under €34,000 and with one event to play, in Dubai next month, to her enormous relief, she looks certain to retain her card.
“At first it was hard being the only Russian,” she said. “Fifty per cent of the girls were really nice, but the other 50 per cent were weird. The nationalities tend to stick together and I was left on my own — that’s why I would take my mum with me to the events.
“But now it’s different. I have lots of friends and most of them are English. I really enjoyed this season and I think my performance in Tenerife took me to the next level. If I keep working on my short game and going to the gym, I can win a tournament. Hopefully I can show other Russian girls that it can be done and that will help develop golf in Russia.”
If Verchenova does taste victory, she will become the first Russian winner (male or female) on either the European or US tours. But she will probably not be the last. In Moscow plans are afoot to emulate Russia’s dominance of tennis on the golf course. Facilities are being built and funding put in place that could herald a new dawn in the professional game.
Konstantin Kozhevnikov, the president of the Russian Golf Association (RGA), is leading the revolution. “By 2015 the RGA is planning to have 500 places to play golf in Russia, including championship courses, academic courses, driving ranges, indoor golf facilities, pitch-and-putt courses and mini-golf courses,” he said. “We want to have Russian golfers winning European and world events and we hope that can happen in the next five years. It is quite possible that in ten years’ time a Russian professional will be in the European Ryder Cup team.”
The RGA has also launched a junior programme that offers clubs incentives to provide free golf to young players. A similar approach was responsible for Russia’s assault on world tennis and could usher in a generation of dominance for a nation with a population of more than 140 million and no shortage of land on which to build courses.
Verchenova is proud of her role in promoting golf in her homeland. She hopes to play in the United States and be the first Russian on the LPGA Tour, and dreams of representing Europe at the Solheim Cup. With her image rights in demand, it is no surprise that she names a Russian tennis player among her role models, but further comparison is not welcome.
“I don’t like it when people say I look like Maria Sharapova,” Verchenova said. “I look nothing like her — she’s blonde, for starters. I really like her, but I want to be myself.”
Revolution on the fairwaysGolf in Russia began in 1987, when the first stone was laid at Moscow City Golf Club. Until then the world’s biggest country, more than six million square miles in size, had no registered courses.
Harsh winters were partly responsible for a reluctance to embrace golf, but there were also political factors. The former Soviet Union viewed golf as a symbol of an indulgent Western lifestyle. “If you asked 1,000 people if they knew who Arnold Palmer was, you would have got 1,000 negative responses,” Alexei Nikolov, the secretary general of the Russian Golf Federation (RGA), said.
But the RGA reports that there are “between eight and 12” courses in Russia — 50 others are under construction — including the Moscow Country Club, home since 1993 to the Russian Open, which was added to the European Tour in 2003.
In 2004 Ouliana Rotmistrova became the first Russian professional to qualify for the Ladies European Tour, at 20, followed by Maria Verchenova two years later. Maria Kostina and her sister Anastasia play on the Futures Tour in the United States. No Russian man has appeared on the European Tour.
- The Times, 27th November 2008