Challenge Tour: Matt Cooper with his opening blog from the season finale in Dubai

Three years ago Andrew Johnston made his way to Challenge Tour Grand Final in a relatively relaxed frame of mind.

He’d started 2011 needing invitations to tee it up and when the second of those reaped a third place finish in Austria he rode the wave of form to find himself in the top 45 come the end of the year.

Halfway through Grand Final week, then played at San Domenico in southern Italy, he was discussing a fitness programme for the following year with the tour osteopath Poora Singh.

Like all Grand Final contestants Johnston knew that a superb performance would catapult him onto the main tour, but that conversation reflected a more realistic aim – to be in a stronger position to graduate to the main tour in 12 months time.

Then Johnston woke up next morning, shot a blistering third round of 65 and suddenly found himself on the brink of bypassing another year on the second tier.

As he walked up the 18th fairway in the final round the career fast forward was still on the cards - he just needed to get up and down from the fringe.

Which made the exquisite chip shot he played all the more magnificent. It briefly threatened to drop, before skirting the hole, and left him with a tap-in for graduation. His girlfriend Louise’s shoulders relaxed for the first time in hours; his brother James rubbed his hands over his face in glorious relief; and Johnston himself, or Beef as he is better known to just about everyone, had the widest, happiest grin in all of Italy.

Moments later the two brothers embraced on the patio of the clubhouse. It was a special moment.

And now, three years on, Johnston is back at Grand Final, in Dubai this time, not the heel of Italy, and yet again he's more relaxed than most, but the circumstances are very different.

Because this year Johnston has finished in the top ten eight times, on two of those occasions he has completed victory, and as a result he sits on top the rankings.

His card for next year is sorted.

2011

Let’s spin back three years.

Because the Grand Final wasn’t 25-year-old Johnston’s first taste of squeaking in at the last minute. Big smiles come naturally to the North Londoner and he can’t suppress one recalling the circumstances of that 2011 season.

“I didn’t have a great category so I was looking for invites and I got two early in the year. I missed the cut first time but when I finished third in Austria I thought, oh hang on, great, maybe I’ll get more now.”

Johnston laughs.

“Didn’t really happen though! I went nearly two months before I got another invite! And when I did it was Denmark at the end of August, I was 100th on the rankings and it was the last week before the cut-off for Kazakhstan. Only the top 100 got in.”

He finished ninth in Denmark, making sure of his seat on the tour caravan heading east.

All tournaments matter for golfers, but for Challenge Tour golfers the Kazakhstan Open matters a little bit more than most. It comes late in the schedule, offering the biggest purse of the year. It can change the course of seasons - and careers too.

“It went great. I was eleventh in Kazakhstan and second the week after in Russia. I was like, wow, how did all this happen?! Four weeks ago I couldn’t get a start and now I’m 21st in the rankings!”

Then that third round 65 in Italy changed everything, including how he slept that night.

“Sleep?! I didn’t get much sleep! I was nervous during the round too, but you just play don’t you? Everything was shaking when I needed that four down the last, but you’ve got to concentrate and trust you can do it.”

And he did it - he earned the golden ticket. He'd timed his run to the line to perfection. Not once, but twice.

2012-3

The question: is what happened in between Grand Finals? What happened between the end of 2011 and the start of 2014?

“I didn’t have a great start to 2012 and got pushed down the re-rank so I missed out on the big events. It was a tough year, but I learned a lot very quickly.”

Johnston doesn’t dodge the truth: “Late on I made a few cuts, but my decent week would be top 30 because I’d only play two or two and a half good rounds.

“It was a steep learning curve. Simple things like more people, more going on, playing near people you normally only see on telly, realising how good they are, big crowds, grandstands on the final green. They’re little things, but getting used to it was a big thing and when I got a start in Denmark on the main tour this August I was definitely more comfortable than first time round.

“I also learned I needed to be fitter and work harder on my game.”

But there was a problem: what initially appeared to a problem with his arm was eventually diagnosed as a repetitive shoulder injury and it wiped out the first half of 2013.

“All those plans to get fit,” Johnston laughs, “and I ended up putting weight on! It was tough. I’d gone backwards so the second half of the year was all about securing my Challenge Tour card for 2014 which I just about scraped.

“I knew that I hadn’t done enough work in the winter of 2011-12 so I went to Portugal for a month before the second stage of Q School.

“I won that second stage and then got a start on the main tour. I finished 18th at the Nelson Mandela Invitational. Those two results were big for my confidence. It was like, okay, this is good, this is working.

2014

“So early this year I was back in Portugal and I really made strides. I’d also got a physio helping with my injury and a personal trainer who upped it to a different level.”

When he hit the course his long game was in good shape. “I was striking the ball so well in Spain. If my short game had been good, who knows? But the important thing was, I got on a roll.”

He’d flirted with the lead a few times in April and May, which perhaps explains his reaction halfway through the Scottish Challenge in late June.

“I was leading by one and was like, who cares mate, it’s not over yet. Then I extended the lead by one and it was a bit like Grand Final - didn’t sleep too well!

“But I knew I was playing good golf. The difference this year is that I’ve put in all that training and hard work so I’ve got no doubts. I’m trusting and committing to the shot, letting the score sort itself out.”

He began his final round in style, holing out for an eagle on the par-four second.

“I was like, don’t celebrate yet, mate, long way to go! Then I got a five-shot lead on the back-nine and I’m playing to the middle of the green, sensible stuff. So on the 17th tee I’m thinking, I’ve hit driver all week, bit of a tight one, play it safe? No, hit driver ... And then I hit it straight out the golf course. I was like, what? What?! What do I do now? Do I hit driver again?”

In a way all the hard work and confidence building had led to this moment.

“I said yes, hit driver again. I knew why it went right. I told myself: sort it, trust it, commit to it. I smashed it down the fairway, made a good six and 18 wasn’t too bad after that!”

The second win came in slightly different circumstances: he was so dialled in he had a shock to find himself holding a three-shot lead on the final tee.

He skipped the two recent events in China to complete a strengthening session with his personal trainer - another example of respecting the long term benefits of hard work. The confidence gained this season will also help his second crack at the main tour, as will that experience in Denmark - the knowledge that strides have been made, that the learning curve of 2012 has not been forgotten.

“The injury was a turning point,” he says. “When I got through it I made some changes and worked harder. You have to put the effort in, commit and let the scores take care of themselves.”

Sometimes it’s not about avoiding a fall, but about how you get back up again afterwards. That’s the challenge and Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston has done it well.