Our boy, Asa!

Badgemore Park’s Asa Philips has flown the Pro Shop nest and is now a full-time golf professional pursuing his dream of playing at the highest level of professional golf. Asa is solely based at Badgemore Park to practice daily and use the high quality state of the art gym facility to train. He represents the club everywhere he goes as his attachment and main supporter.

‘Badgemore Park has always been so amazing to me’ says Asa. ‘I won my first ever junior open there, I worked there for 3 years and through my career it has continued to develop me and support me. I plan to represent the club to the highest level I can.’

Golf has always been in Asa’s blood. He first became seriously interested in golf at around the age of 11.

‘I always messed around with a little junior left handed set of clubs from the age of 4. I used to play with my Dad at our local course, but my passion became apparent at age 11 when my dad took me to compete in his golf society. From then on, every evening was spent on the golf course and not doing my homework!’

As with all sport, competitiveness is key. So who was the first person Asa won a game of golf against?

“He will not like this one bit’ laughs Asa, ‘but it was my brother! (Asa’s brother is Professional Caddy, Lyle Philips). We used to spend all of our time together practicing and messing around as kids, I always had the age and physical ability in my favour but a win’s a win!

A win is indeed a win, but in the game that is golf, is it possible to reach a + handicap if you put your mind and all your effort towards it?

‘Tough one that!’ explains Asa. ‘My answer would be, yes. You can be as good as you think you can, so if someone truly believed that they could get there and put the hours in, it’s definitely possible. For some people it would be seriously hard don’t get me wrong’ Asa says with a cheeky smile, ‘… ask Jon Connell (Asa’s old boss and Managing Director of Badgemore Park).’

Asa has always looked after his fitness, he’s a regular in the Badgemore Park gym, FOCUS. But when it comes to the physical attributes of a golfer, Asa believes golfers ‘come in all shapes and sizes.’

 ‘I guess to play to the top level it’s become evident that generating speed to hit the ball greater distances is a must, so that may be a physical characteristic that’s needed’ explains Asa. ‘However for the general golfer who wants to play to enjoy the game, anyone can play.’

As most of us know, golf requires a huge amount of focus. Players need to block out all distractions when they step up to make their shot. They need to think of nothing but the ball and how they are going to hit it. That said, how on earth does a professional player keep focused during a 4-day tournament?

‘I tend to keep to my own routines as much as possible’ explains Asa.

‘In my downtime I tend to keep busy doing things I normally do like going for dinner, watching movies or spending time in the gym. And then when I’m at the course, that’s when I tend to think of golf. It’s all about finding the balance, not overthinking your game and how the next day could go.’

But… let’s not forget the nerves… how does one calm those?

‘I’m still learning!!’ says Asa. ‘The minute I turned pro I really struggled with this, performance anxiety and putting myself under pressure to make cuts and make money. But I’m learning to control this and stick to my routines and processes’ he says. ‘ It’s not easy but I’m getting better.’

‘Something that really helped me with first tee nerves for an example, was a couple of breathing techniques I would do on my walk to the tee.’

Does Asa have any other advice for amateur players?

‘This would be taking shots on which don’t match the players ability’ he says.

‘I always stand over a shot and ask myself, “can I execute the shot I want to hit at least 70% of the time?”. If the answer is yes, I go for it and play that shot and if it’s a no, I’ll look at other options until I can find the shot that I can execute – even if it is to lay up, chip out or play away from the flag. Ask yourself the same question and see what changes!’

Badgemore Park would like to take this opportunity to thank Asa for his time, we’re incredibly proud of our affiliation with this very talent player! Check out updates on Asa on the Badgemore Park Facebook page; instagram feed and on Twitter!