³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Martin didn't have much need for his woolly bunnet during his college days

I'd never been to the US before I signed up to come over but had heard from a few players who were already on golf scholarships, that it was a great place and the conditions and facilities for practicing were, at that time, second to none.

I'd really had enough of taking a huge break from competitive golf in winter and not really being able to work on my game to any real benefit for a good few months. Hitting balls off a mat at the driving range and playing to winter greens is better than nothing at all, but it isn't going to make you a better player!

Another factor for me coming over to the US was the fact that I loved watching golf growing up.

I knew that coming over here would be a way to test myself on this side of the Atlantic and let me know if I liked it and whether my game could hold up.

I really do feel that the experience I gained playing at was vital to where I am right now and played a huge part in me improving to the level that I felt I was ready to turn professional.

When I came over as a 17 year old, I was nowhere near good enough to even consider turning pro.

I was a member of the Scotland squad and had put in some good summer results playing in amateur events but my game needed to improve drastically before I thought about joining the paid ranks.

What was so good about the college route was that I knew that I was going to have four years to improve and mature, all while having intense competition over those years to drive me on.

Golf is a game where you are learning all the time and I still use a lot of the things that I learned from my coach at CSU, as well as things I learned myself, every time I'm on the golf course.

I had a lot of fun while learning too. There were 10 guys on our team and we became really good friends. You see each other almost every day and are all going through the same thing.

I really do believe you have to make it fun if you want to get better, and even though the 6am workouts were often painful, we definitely did have a great time travelling around the US playing in different tournaments and seeing new places.

I found it hard to shine when I first came over as I really struggled to adapt to the different style of golf. I used to hit the ball really low and my short game was mostly about hitting bump and runs from playing links golf, mostly in the wind.

You soon find out when you get to the US that ideally you want to hit the ball high and you definitely have to master the flop shot around the greens to get out of the rough.

I didn't get to play in every tournament during my first semester and that was extremely frustrating. You never want to be left behind, so when I was missing out, it was extra motivation for me to get better and inspired me to do whatever it took to make myself a regular on the team.

It wasn't until the end of my first year that I managed it. I had finally adapted to US style golf courses and the different types of grass that had caused me problems when I first arrived.

There is more emphasis on game development than winning; that was the case with my coach anyway. His view was that if you kept developing and improving, the winning would follow.

He would always talk about getting better and working on the weaknesses in our games, with less emphasis on needing to win the next tournament.

I know for a fact that I worked on my game a lot more during my college years than I would have if I had stayed at home. Some days I didn't want to practice but I always had to go if the coach said so.

I've always been sort of a grinder when it comes to practice but my college experience took it to a different level.

The competition on the US college circuit is extremely high and not only from the US guys. There are so many good players now from all over the world that go and play college golf. Nearly every team you see has at least one international player.

When we weren't on the road we would be having games all the time within our team. We would get little competitions going while practicing and often have games on the course after practice. When you are a poor college student you can't afford to keep losing money to your team-mates so you better improve quickly!

There was never really a time when there wasn't some form of competition and that can only help you improve.

Martin is looking forward to his first crack at The Masters

The academic side only got in the way of the golf development if you let it. If you didn't manage your time very well it definitely got tough to fit everything in and still do well at university. You soon learn to get into a routine so that the academic side didn't affect your golf and vice versa.

I think that it's good to have a distraction from golf too at that age. If all I did all day when I was 18 years old was play or practice and focus on golf, then I'm sure I would have burnt out pretty quickly. I think that's a big problem with golfers that turn pro really young.

There's a lot of pressure on them to succeed and if they don't break through within a year or two then confidence can really dip.

There are very few players in the world that are ready for the pro ranks when they're teenagers and quite often players that everyone thought were ready, turn out not to be.

There's such a huge gap between junior golf and college golf, college golf and mini-tour golf, and then mini-tour golf and PGA Tour/European Tour golf.

For me, being on a golf scholarship for four years gave me time to improve and learn in a relatively stress-free environment. That's something you don't get if you turn pro straight away.

I think that for the majority of players making the gradual progression up the golfing ranks is the best way to develop and maximise your potential.

If you take out the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroys of the world, then nearly everyone else that is a top player either played college golf or played a lot of very competitive amateur golf before turning pro. The experience is invaluable.

Things have changed a lot, and for the better, in amateur golf since I came over to the US in 2000. Back then there was minimal funding for top amateurs and in the winter there was pretty much no competition back home at all.

Nowadays national squads fly all over the world playing in tournaments and go to warmer climates to improve in the winter. Top amateur players can effectively be full-time golfers with the funding that's available and can work on their game all year round, playing in different conditions.

If this was the case back when I was making my decision to play college golf I may have considered a different path. However, I do think that I probably still would have ended up in the US; there was just something about it that really attracted me.

It has worked for a good number of British golfers in the past and I'm sure it will continue to do so.

For me, having a chance to work on my game with excellent facilities and competition year-round worked out great. And I earned a degree at the end of it all too...