Chandler’s loyalty rewarded as Denison delivers on his promise

The dramatic turnaround in the career of Leeds golfer Danny Denison has been likened by Chubby Chandler as a story to match that of the major-winning feats of Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.

Four years ago, Denison was a fast-developing 22-year-old golfer with the promise of riches and fame beyond his wildest dreams.

He had announced his arrival on the professional scene two years earlier with a 67 in his first round on the European Tour to see his name adorn the leaderboard at the Qatar Masters and he debuted at the Open the following year at Hoylake as an amateur.

Nike, one of the famous marques in sports manufacturing, were alerted to the promise and became his premier sponsor.

But it all changed en route to a Challenge Tour event in Austria in May, 2007, when the driver of his courtesy car appeared to fall asleep at the wheel and in the ensuing high-speed accident Denison had to be cut from the wreckage and air-lifted to hospital.

It was not just his golf career that hung in the balance – it was his life. The diagnosis was a compound fracture of his thigh bone and it would be 10 months before he walked again.

The long road back to regular competitive golf took two years.

Hence the pride in his agent Chandler’s eyes when he talks now of how, just two years after taking up full-time membership on the Challenge Tour, Denison has graduated to the continent’s elite circuit.

He won in Denmark in August and finished second in a co-sanctioned event with the European Tour in Kazakhstan to finish sixth overall and earn his playing card among the big boys in 2012.

“Even with all the major winners we’ve had, the stories of Charl (2011 Masters) and Louis (2010 Open), Danny’s is one of the nicest stories we’ve had this year,” said the founder of International Sports Management (ISM) and agent of Denison who in his amateur days won English schoolboy and Yorkshire representative honours.

“I’m very proud of him.

“We saw an awful lot of him at the time of the accident.

“He was going out with a girl who lived near our offices near Manchester and he used to come in on his crutches. It was such a slow process for him. He’d keep coming back in saying ‘I’ve moved onto putting now’ or ‘I’ve moved onto chipping’.

“In a funny sort of way the accident has made him a tougher lad.

“So it’s quite refreshing for us to see him doing so well when you consider that he was a golfer who you wondered whether he’d ever walk again.

“For him to come through it and do what he has done this year shows that he is very tough.

“It’s got to the stage where you don’t even ask him now if he has problems with his leg.

“I’m sure he’ll never be 100 per cent on it and the leg will never be as strong as it once was, but Danny is a top pro.

“He never moaned, he just worked and worked.”

Denison was blessed to have loyal people around him.

ISM or Nike – with address books full of household names – could easily have abandoned the young man in his hour of need, and he expressed his gratitude earlier this summer for their unwavering support.

Chandler added: “There are some great companies in golf and Nike are one of those.

“They always checked on how he was doing.”

The reason they have stood by Denison is the promise.

Denison is a mature, level-headed young man who has a solid reputation within the game.

His disappointed reaction to a below-par performance at the Challenge Tour’s grand final earlier this month, which saw him slip from fourth to sixth on the money list, was of the sort that sets apart winners.

Chandler said: “He was a little down having fallen from fourth to sixth on the money list but when he finally sat down on the Tuesday and reflected on it, I’m sure he will have been very proud of himself.

“He’ll become a real solid player on the European Tour over the next few years.

“He reminds me a bit of a Luke Donald.”

Heady praise indeed from such an influential power-broker, and if Denison achieves just half of what world No 1 Donald has managed in his illustrious career, he will do well.

Whatever happens, the future is looking a lot brighter than it perhaps did four years ago for Denison.

His playing rights get him into 25 tournaments next year, the first of which is the Africa Open at East London Golf Club on January 5.

From there, the experienced plotter of European campaigns Chandler will help negotiate a path on which Denison can maximise his talent.