Chris Devlin is best known to Irish golf fans as the man who helped launch Graeme McDowell on the road to a stunning PGA Tour career. But the Ballymena man (49) is no slouch when it comes to the Royal and Ancient game himself. After cruising to a nine-shot win in the recent Trans-Mississipi Mid-Amateur Championship at Brasada Ranch Canyons in Oregon, he's contemplating trying for his card on the PGA Tour Champions at the end of this year.
"I've been getting more engaged in it this year, just simply because I'm 49 now, so I turn 50 next year, and I'm very intrigued by the Champions Tour, and I've got a lot of people trying to push me to go that direction, and I haven't taken it out of the equation," said Devlin, who was responsible for introducing McDowell to the University of Alabama in Birmingham. "In fact, I will probably go to Champions Tour Q-School this year, just because I have been playing so much better, and I feel like the game’s in good shape, and I still hit the ball a long way." Devlin learned the game in his native Northern Ireland and moved to UAB in 1996 to start his US adventure.
"I was just lucky to be recruited by a bunch of coaches over here," he told AmateurGolf.com. "I didn't know, really, as I was playing golf in Ireland, and then recruited by a bunch of coaches from the United States and didn't really know anybody, as I have never been here before.
"And so ended up getting recruited to UAB, and decided the only place I wasn't going to go was up north .