Yates takes amateur road back into golf

Both are 33, from the Midlands, work in finance, have young families, and are back in amateur golf having spent a number of years in Europe looking to make a career in the professional game.

Now Jonathan Yates wants to emulate his good friend Stuart Grehan and make a success of it, having watched him play in one Walker Cup and book his place at another in Lahinch next month.

Grehan had a phenomenal 2025 which included a Flogas Irish Men’s Amateur Open Championship and AIG Irish Men’s Amateur Close title. This year’s highlight was the Amateur he won at Royal Liverpool.

It’s 10 years since Yates claimed his most noteworthy win on the amateur circuit in Ireland, when he was crowned West of Ireland champion at County Sligo Golf Club.

He turned professional just over two years later and battled it out on the Alps Tour. He won the Alps Tour Grand Final in 2022 but the following year began his QFA exams and today he works in Ballsbridge with LHW Financial Planning Ltd, where he is a Financial Advisor.

“It’s funny, Stu and I were both playing on the Challenge Tour in 2023. At the start of that year, randomly, I had been in touch with Alan Lewis,” said Yates.

“He is the former Ireland cricketer and rugby referee. He is my boss now and he is the dream; he backs you and loves to see guys compete and play sports. From that point of view, I am very lucky to have the flexibility.

“He understood it and said, start getting my QFAs, get my qualifications, come in and get experience, but at the same time go and travel. I had my Challenge Tour card, had status and travelled all year.

“Stu and I were travelling together and just naturally, as you do when you are outside of golf, you are having dinner and chatting. I was telling him I am doing QFAs and this is what it entailed.

“I know DFP, who are very similar to LHW, he ended up getting engaged with them and started on the same road. Ironically, we both ended up in the same place. I am not sure, if travelling together and chatting about it had any influence on each other but we both ended up here.

“I did that and then at the end of the year I lost my status and I moved into full-time employment.”

Yates hails from Naas and he was a boarder at Kilkenny College where he played rugby and tennis. But he picked up golf when he was 12 and within a couple of years, was already playing off scratch.

However, it wasn’t until his late teens before golf became the main sport and after a year studying Psychology in Maynooth University, he created a plan with his then coach Gavin Lunny and that began to pay dividends.

“Things started happening. I won the Irish Students Stroke Play, soon after I won the Spanish Am, the Midlands Scratch Cup and then the West. Within six months, I started winning events and they got bigger and bigger.

“Unfortunately, in 2016 I didn’t get selected for Homes but I had a good season. I had to wait a bit longer for an Irish cap but by 2018 I played everything, Homes, six-man, Nations Cup and the lot.

“Developed year on year, to a point where I felt I had done a lot in Irish golf. Then the next step for me was to get into the pro ranks and get that experience.”

Yates went to Alps Tour Q-School in December 2018 and turned professional, he had a busy schedule before the Covid-19 impacted season that followed. There were still signs of progress when he got the opportunity, and that was crowned off by his big win in October 2022.

Away from the course he began to study at Ireland’s professional body for the finance profession, LIA in May 2023. He later took up a Level 9 at UCD where he focused on Financial Planning Risk Advice, Retirement Planning Advice, and Specialist Investment Advice.

He got married two years ago to Katie Mai McCarthy and they welcomed their first child last year, when Archie McCarthy-Yates was born.

“That changed things. I didn’t have as much time to travel and didn’t want it as well, to leave her stuck and me to go off and travel, that wasn’t what I wanted,” said Yates.

“I had been playing so well but having no access to events, I got fed up not playing in my best years. I got home from the golf course one day and I just pulled the trigger on it.

“I was like, you know what, all I want to do is compete. I just want to get out there; I don’t necessarily care where it is. I just want to play and right now the best access for me to play is amateur events.”

It had been six months since his last professional event when Yates applied to get his handicap back in May. He got that in June and played his first amateur event at the Mullingar Scratch Trophy. Now playing out of Kilkenny, he finished T15 on one-under par.

This week he is in Portumna for the AIG Irish Men’s Amateur Close Championship, where he will hope to dethrone Grehan.

“I am looking forward to getting back, competing. If my golf is good enough so be it but it certainly won’t be for lack of trying,” said Yates.

“It’s a funny one, it’s a pity some people are looking at Stu’s win (the Amateur) negatively. At the end of the day, he has eluded to this himself, all Stu wants to do and all I want to do is play golf.

“If the avenue isn’t there or financially, we are not able to afford being on the road playing professional events, or because of family or whatever it might be.

“For me, the opportunity to play golf now is as an amateur. If that wasn’t there because the rules were changed it would be such a pity. Why deny people the opportunity to play when we are just following the rules that are in place.

“When you apply to go back amateur, you put in an application to The R&A, and it goes in front of a board, and they make a decision on it. What else can you do?

“If I do half of what Stu has done, I will be very satisfied. If people want to comment that’s up to them.”