UAE PGA champion looking forward to teeing it up in home MENA Tour stop

With a former Open champion in the field and the club’s favourite son as defending champion, the headlines have been well and truly hogged heading into the Dubai Creek Open. But one of the club’s teaching pros will have plenty of support when the MENA Tour returns from its 10-week summer hiatus on Monday.

By Kent Gray
Cennydd Mills may carry the business card of a teaching professional nowadays rather than the touring pro equivalent he once coveted but he’s more than happy with his lot at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club.

And why not? Home will always be the Glamorgan township of Llantrisant (pop. 15,000), a good 20 minute drive west of the Welsh capital Cardiff, but what’s not to love about a job in year-round desert sunshine, the warmth of club members just as happy to escape chillier climes and an office manicured to tour standard?

“The Creek for me, it’s the best members club in the UAE and the best place to work at because everybody gets on. As far as facilities and climate, it’s just perfect,” said Mills, 35 this month, says. “It’s just a nice environment to work in.”

As happy as his two years in Dubai have been, don’t confuse professional contentment with any dimming of the competitive fire that earned the former Welsh international the scalps of Shane Lowry, Ross Fisher and Gary Wolsterholme during Home Internationals duty in the early to mid 2000s.

Put a scorecard in his back pocket and you can almost guarantee the former European Challenge and EuroPro Tour player will split more fairways than not and rarely ruin a score with poor decision-making.

Five victories en-route to the 2016-17 UAE PGA order-of-merit (OOM) title are proof of just that with winning scores of 71-68-71-68 and 70 at Al Hamra, Al Badia, The Faldo, Sharjah and Tower Links illuminating his ability.

Still, he was made to sweat on the OOM win. Back in the U.K. for his brother Owain’s stag-do and wedding, Mills could have been piped to the title by Steven Munro had the UAE PGA chief finished fourth or better in decisive UAE PGA Championship. But after a solid start at Al Zorah in the season-finale, Munro faded to a share of 6th and Mills had redemption for narrowly missing out on the crown to Callum Nicoll (ADGC) the previous season.

“Teaching is my main goal now but I still enjoy competing. I don’t think I’ll ever stop playing tournaments because I enjoy it and I think it’s good from a coaching perspective to stay in touch with the game, to stay competitive.

“Even if I’m going for a [causal] knock I’m keeping count of what I am to par. I think that’s just always the competitive nature that I’ve had.

“There’s a good few guys [teaching pros] that can play out here so it was really satisfying to win it because it’s always nice to be OOM champion of your PGA. It’s something I’m proud of. “

Mills will defend the title over winter but not before teeing it up in this week’s Dubai Creek Open. As the world’s 50th ranked amateur, the club’s favourite son and the event’s defending champion, Rayhan Thomas will have his name up in lights at the September 11-13 MENA Tour event. But Mills is sure of strong support from Creek members, many his day-to-day clients.

“The last time I played MENA Tour was 2014 and the last event I played I finished second [to Moroccan Ahmed Marjan at the RAK Classic] so if I can try and get a bit of practice in and sharpen up the game a bit…,” said Mills before reining in the expectations by saying he would just look to enjoy the experience.

After the competitive scratch is itched, Mills (in the fourth group out at 7.30am on Monday) will be back on the range honing the amateur swings like he once did for former Ryder Cupper Phillip Price and Rhys Davies who earned his European Tour card back under the Welshman’s tutelage. So how about a top tip for free?

“Most amateurs, you give them drills to work on and then what you see them doing it going straight to the range and going into what I like to call machine gun mode and just rattling off shot after shot. It goes back to the old saying, practice makes permanent in golf, not perfect. I’d rather see them hit 20 balls with real purpose, practicing moves, rather than rattling off 80 balls without thinking about it reconfirming old habits.”