01 Oct 2019 | Professional golf |
Scott kickstarts Trent's dream week
by Mark Hayes
Jack Trent was powering away in a Las Vegas gym last week when he took a phone call about which he once would never have dared to dream.
Trent, 20, looked at his phone and pondered not even answering a number he didn't recognise, but soon became very glad that he hit the little green button.
"Hi Jack, this is Adam Scott," came the voice.
"Would you like to play a practice round next week?"
To a young Queenslander who has spent the past five years of his life almost anonymously - from an Australian perspective - toiling away on his game in Nevada, this was almost beyond belief.
"It's pretty surreal," Trent told Inside The Ropes as he prepares for his PGA Tour debut in this week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.
"He was my hero growing up ... I can't believe I'm going to play a practice round with him tomorrow."
Coincidentally, the pair once both played at Headlands Golf Club on the Sunshine Coast, are both former students of Matthew Flinders Anglican College in Buderim and Trent is now in his junior year at Scott's alma mater, UNLV.
"I promise I'm not stalking him," joked Trent, who’s still proudly Australian in both voice and nature.
"But now I get to play with him. Unreal."
It's going to be that sort of week for Trent, who beat current world No.2 amateur Cole Hammer in a playoff at the Southern Highlands Collegiate tournament earlier this year.
The prize, aside from beating a top-class field for his first college victory, was a ticket to play at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas this week.
As fate would have it, it's one of the courses Trent played regularly as a junior when he moved with his family to Nevada aged 15 to further his golfing career.
He won two Nevada state titles while at high school and is rapidly building a strong resume playing for the Rebels, - including being the conference freshman of the year in 2017 - as well as reaching the Round of 32 in this year's US Amateur at Pinehurst.
But for now it's a sneak peak at what Trent hopes will be his future - a shot with the big boys on the world's biggest tour.
"It's going to be amazing," Trent said.
"I'm probably lucky it's on a course that I know pretty well, but yeah, I'm sure I'm going to be nervous.
"But I've got to get used to it.
"I'll be just as nervous playing with Adam on Tuesday, probably."
Fear not, Jack, you're in good hands.
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