Rayhan Thomas hits the paid ranks

Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and Viktor Hovland have all sung his praises. Now the Dubai-based prodigy has returned to familiar shores since turning pro, in this his first exclusive interview.

Rayhan, if my maths is right it’s been around six years since we’ve caught up in person. How has the “Life of Rayhan” been?

It’s been a roller coaster for sure. The last six to seven years have been a real grind. A lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of bad golf, and some good golf. But also a lot of self-discovery and a lot of good things have come out of it all.

It must be comforting being back in Dubai and surrounded by all of the positive memories?

It is. I’ve got a lot of good memories especially at Dubai Creek, Emirates Golf Club and The Els Club from my junior days.

The best part of growing up here was I had my so many of my friends and family here. I was in a great group of juniors growing up playing golf together, and we had a great time whenever we headed out to the golf course.

We had a good Indian community down at the Creek that I used to play with in junior opens and the par three series. We used to take it so seriously when we played these competitions as kids!

We used to go all over the U.A.E. I can remember driving to Al Ain to play a junior open and Yas Links to play in a par three competition. It was just so much fun for us to do that which made it feel so special. It used to be the most fun part of my day!

So all those memories come flooding back. It kind of reminds me why I enjoyed playing this game, it helps you put things in perspective.

You’ve been lucky enough to rub shoulders with big names HERE in practice rounds and tournaments. How much did you take from that towards your development?

It was awesome. When I was playing the then European Tour events out here early on, it was good to get a little taste, a little perspective on what I needed to do to get to where they were and see how my game matched up to theirs.

When I played in my first Dubai Desert Classic in 2017, I thought to myself, I want to do that again! The atmosphere was addictive. Obviously the Dubai Desert Classic is an amazing event and one of the premier Rolex Series events on the schedule. So to play that and get a taste, I was like “wow” I definitely want to be back here.

I was lucky enough to be able to practice with Rory that year as well, so that was a huge highlight for me. He is easily the best player I’ve played with.

Then also, I think in my first Dubai Desert Classic I even played with Anirban Lahiri and SSP Chawrasia, so that was an all Indian group which was very special.

Ahmed Abd El-Wahab/Motivate Create

You are still connected to Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club, how special is it to have their support throughout your early career?

Amazing. They’ve been really good to me. The Creek has a pretty widespread in terms of associated clubs in the Dubai Golf and VIYA Golf umbrella. So I can also play at Emirates Golf Club, Jumeirah Golf Estates, Yas Links, Yas Acres and Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, which gives me the ability to be able to play and practice out here without having any worries. So that’s huge for me. I’m extremely grateful to all of them, while also not forgetting The Els Club as well for helping me out.

I was just about to ask you about The Els Club. You were of course coached there by Justin Parsons at the Claude Harmon III Performance Golf Academy, are you guys still in touch?

We are. He’s going to be a mentor for me forever as he is somebody that I respect so much, and I’ll take always listen to his advice. He’s an extremely smart coach. So, I’ll always keep in touch and seek his advice as much as I can. He’s a good friend of mine.

You took the decision to head stateside and to Oklahoma State University (OSU), how integral was that in your progression?

Huge. At the time I was unsure about whether I had enough game to play professional golf or not. So going there gave me a little bit of time to figure out whether I could do it and what I needed to do to get better. But at the same time, I was really struggling with my game. So it gave me a little bit of a buffer to be able to go to college and get access to great coaches, facilities and competition to see how my level progressed.

It helped with the bunch of guys that built our team. It was a pretty small team in my first year. I think we had four freshmen on the team of eight. So those three, me and three of the other freshmen got very close both on and off the course.

Obviously Eugenio Chacarra was on the team, he’s now on LIV Golf. Austin Eckroat was one of my guys and he’s won on the PGA Tour. Then Rasmus Neergaard was on the team as well and he’s smashing it on the Challenge Tour, he’s already nailed on his DP World Tour card.

All of us were pretty close and pretty tight knit, so you want to see them all do well out on Tour.

You were open about your setbacks and struggles in your journey while at OSU, how tough was that period?

Oh, it was extremely tough. It was just tough because I’ve never really felt struggle when I was a kid. And you don’t really think about that, those kind of things. So when it first started coming about where I couldn’t really hit my driver very good and it just continuously got worse, it was a really tough time and something I hadn’t experienced before.

And I probably don’t know if I went through it the right way, but we’re here now and we kind of learned how to try and figure it out. Now I think I have a much better understanding of myself and my game. If it comes back and I start struggling again, I know that I’ve been able to beat it and I’ll continue to do the same.

Rayhan featured twice as Golf Digest Middle East’s cover in the past, thanks to his top amateur career. Ahmed Abd El-Wahab/Motivate Create

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But you’ve grown and come out the other side, that must show your strength and belief?

Absolutely, that’s what I told myself. I gave myself last year and said, “Give it 100% and whatever happens, happens. But just know that you didn’t leave any stone unturned.”

So that was what I did. I gave it 100% and said there’s no excuses for me, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out and that’s okay. But I then at least know that I gave it 100%. Now it’s good to see my game starting to get better and be in a good place and hopefully I will continue to get better.

Topping it off with a hand injury last year must of just added to it all?

Exactly, I had surgery in November and it took about two months of recovery, but the timeline was perfect to where I needed to be by the time I was fully recovered.

I think I had about two weeks after surgery to get ready for our season and I was lucky that my game was still there.

That was also another great thing I learned from college with Coach Brad, he said it was a good time to take the time off, rest and come back. So I shouldn’t be worried.

Now that you’ve graduated and turned professional, what is the transition and pressure like within golf now that you are actually earning money by playing golf?

It wasn’t a tough decision to make turning pro because I knew it was what I wanted to do, but there was definitely some kind of doubt involved with it.

You don’t really know what’s ahead of you. It’s easy in college because you had your whole schedule planned out in front of you.

Then all of a sudden, you turn pro and it’s like you’re trying to figure out your budgeting for where are you going to stay and buy everything from. It’s a lot trickier that way.

Then you realise, “Oh wait, I actually have to pay for these myself now.” So there’s a lot of things around that.

But at the end of the day, everybody like in any business, you have got to figure out how to get started. In the first year you’re not really going to make much money, but you want to set yourself up for success, so you have to do what you have to do.

That’s kind of the approach I’m trying to take.

Do you feel like there is pressure on yourself, from external factors, especially with your successful amateur career?

I’ve thought about this before. That is the kind of pressure that you put on yourself, because there’s not much you can do about what other people expect of you. It’s obvious you start to think about other people’s expectations which gets you anxious. But I try to at least remove that portion of it from my thinking, in terms of just trying to make sure that all I’m attempting to do is play good golf, and if I can do that, then so be it.

If you play good golf, everything else will fall into place. That’s priority number one.

Ahmed Abd El-Wahab/Motivate Create

You’ve had a pretty solid start to pro life though! four tournaments down and you’ve already got your name on your first title on the PGTI in India, was that a dream come true?

It was a lot of fun to play. I had my uncle on my bag and my sister there watching me so that made it even more special for me.

To be back in India for my debut event and to come out there and win it, made a little bit of a statement to a lot of the guys in the field that I played amateur golf with and they had turned pro a lot earlier than I had.

I hadn’t seen them in like three or four years, so it was good to come out and win. I love being in India and seeing those guys.

Is that a monkey off the back?

It kind of is. There’s a lot of fruit in winning you know. There’s a lot of things you can take from it.

Confidence, as well as the feeling. So it was good to get a win and have that under my belt.

Your family must be happy to have you back home in Dubai now?

They are. They’re having a good time. I know my mother and father love having me home and I love being home as well.

You are clearly are very close to you family, what is the best lesson you’ve learned from your parents?

That’s a good question. They’ve taught me so much.

I know my dad once said, “You have nothing to be ashamed of, if it’s the right thing to do.” So I’ve always thought about that. It’s easy to get pushed into the mainstream of thinking and ideology to try to make sure you fit in.

But if it’s the right thing to do, you have nothing to be ashamed of.

He also always tells me nothing’s ever free! Ha! So be careful!

I will! What’s the plan looking like for your playing schedule?

It’s funny right, because there’s a lot of glamour to turning professional and if you have a stellar amateur career or a great college career, you turn pro and you get a load of invites and money and things like that thrown at you. But it’s different when you’re not on that side. People don’t talk about that as much. You might be trying to budget and figure out how to get the money to pay for all this, then figure out a place to stay and travel there, so it gets pretty tricky.

So for me at least when September time comes around, I’ll be at all the Q-School stuff, Europe for the DP World Tour, USA for the PGA Tour and Asia for the Asian Tour Q-School as well. I’ll be doing all three and try to figure out which is the best route to go down.

Main image:: Ahmed Abd El-Wahab/Motivate Create