As a tournament professional, Ewan Porter was a two-time winner on the Nationwide Tour.
LIFE is a never-ending balancing act for Ewan Porter, a man who has left his mark on so many parts of the golf industry.
The former touring professional’s first love is his NextGen Amateur Golf Tour, which he launched six years ago to help talented young Australians develop their games, get used to big-time golf, and pursue their careers.
But, though it takes up most of his time, the tour doesn’t provide him with much of an income. So he balances that passion with a successful career as an international golf commentator, covering DP World Tour, LPGA, US PGA and Australasian Tour tournaments.
It’s an occupation that, by its nature, takes him away from his Sydney home, where he lives with wife Emily and two-year-old son Tommy.
The balancing challenge will become even more complicated after July, when Emily is due to give birth to identical twin sons.
“It’s difficult,” Porter, 42, concedes, “but I really want to work in golf for the rest of my life and, for me, that means travel and being away from home.
“I just try to make sure I’m not away for any length of time.”
As organiser and manager of the NextGen Amateur Tour, Porter is offering playing opportunities and international tournament experience to the next wave of young golfing stars.
Porter, who grew up in Sydney’s Sutherland shire, knows golf inside and out.
He joined Cronulla Golf Club as a 12-year-old and learned the game quickly. He played and practiced every day, made the Australian Schoolboys squad in 1998 and won the NSW Junior Championship in 1999 and 2000.
After a short, but successful, stint as an amateur, Porter turned professional in 2001. He was 19, with talent to burn and an aggressive, brash style of golf that promised he might become another Greg Norman, Ian Baker-Finch or Wayne Grady.
He campaigned on the Australasian Tour and, later, on the Asian Tour with moderate success, before securing status on the Nationwide Tour, America’s secondary circuit, now known as the Korn Ferry Tour.
In 2008 he won the Moonah Classic, one of a handful of Australian and New Zealand events that were affiliated with the Nationwide Tour, his success earning him full status for the next two years. He made the most of it, winning the 2010 South Georgia Classic on the Nationwide Tour.
Porter says he’s very proud of those two wins – particularly the one on American soil – and the three appearances he made in British Opens.
But he failed to make an impression on the world’s biggest tours, struggled with consistency, and you get the impression he expected more of his playing career. He briefly quit the game in frustration in 2009, and finally gave it up at the age of 30, returning to Australia to consider his future.
His retirement coincided with Australia hosting the 2013 World Cup of Golf at Royal Melbourne, an event won by Jason Day and Adam Scott. Porter was invited to become part of the commentary team, largely because he was virtually still a current player, and could bring a fresher, more contemporary viewpoint to a team largely made up of older former players.
Porter loved it, considered commenting on golf was almost as good as playing it, and threw his hat in the ring for more gigs.
“I’d network my contacts, send emails, make phone calls, talk to anybody I thought might be able to help me,” he said.
Ewan Porter has transitioned from playing to commentating professional tournaments around the world.
But it wasn’t until 2017 that his perseverance paid off, and he landed his next assignment – working with the US Golf Association’s commentary team at the US Open.
That led to other major events, including a US PGA Championship, before Channel 7 asked him to cover Australian events.
“It literally snowballed from there,” Porter said, leading to ongoing commentary assignments for the DP World Tour and the LPGA, for whom he broadcast nine events last year, several of them on the Asian swing.
He says he’s covered every aspect of golf broadcasting, including studio work, interviewing players, analysing the game, and walking the course – usually with the leading contenders – and delivering an insight that only comes with experience and knowledge.
He says he’s learned a lot over the years, but describes golf commentary as a ‘very small market’ and fears that rising costs may make it difficult for freelancers like him.
“Some European tournaments, even now, are being covered by commentators working out of a studio in London,” he said. “I love walking with the players, describing the scene and hopefully bringing viewers something of the drama and excitement. I think that enhances any coverage.”
Porter says he is looking at other opportunities in golf; perhaps in Asia, perhaps involving event management – certainly golf-related.
And he has his hands full organising and managing his NextGen Amateur Tour, which offers playing opportunities, career progression and international tournament play for Australia’s new wave of young golf stars.
It began at Cronulla in 2019 as an event for juniors to honour the legacy of Porter’s father Norm – a 36-hole strokeplay tournament with a Super 6 knockout to determine the winner. It’s now grown to a series of at least up to 20 World Amateur Golf Ranking events across six countries.
Porter and his mate Peter Shaw do virtually all of the work – from finding sponsors to arranging exemptions for tournament winners, funding trips for promising players, juggling the schedule to fit in with existing tours, and managing the events.
He sees the tour – which caters for male and female golfers from 13 to 25 – as a great opportunity to create pathways for the next generation of Australian golfing talent.
“The tour is made up of three-day, 54 hole tournaments that reflect what they’ll do when they turn pro,” Porter said.
And he says the proof of its benefit is already clear to see, the tour having delivered 18 scholarships, funded 10 international trips, and produced the winners of two PGA Tour of Australasia events, five Ladies European Tour top 10s, four Australian Junior Champions, two US Junior quarter-finalists and an Asia Pacific Amateur Champion.
This year’s NextGen Tour comprises 17 tournaments in Victoria, NSW, Queensland, New Zealand and the Middle East, culminating in the world final in November.
