Kathryn Newton back on her favourite golfing stage at St Andrews
Hollywood star Kathryn Newton returns to St Andrews in October relishing the chance to play again in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
“It’s an honour to play in this tournament and brings me back to the reason I play the game. A Championship like the Dunhill really opens up my world and makes me realise I’m so lucky to be playing golf, and makes me more determined to encourage more people to play this game, especially girls.”
Kathryn has a formidable golfing pedigree. Her high school team won the CIF Championships and have just been inducted into the hall of fame. Her record of five-under-par in a nine-hole match still stands. Her best handicap has been plus two and when she has played in the Alfred Dunhill Links before some of the spectators haven’t known she is an actress and think she is a professional.
Eyeing a career in golf, she initially wanted to play as an amateur in the 2012 US Women's Open, but had to withdraw from the qualifier after getting her first ever lead in the film Paranormal Activity 4, and that set her on a different path.
Since then among her starring roles have been CBS comedy series Gary Unmarried, HBO mystery drama Big Little Lies and Netflix drama The Society. She also starred as Marvel’s newest superhero in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania and appeared in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Blockers and Freaky.
Does she have any regrets? “I was 14 or 15,” she recalls. “And you couldn’t pass up on that. It was a huge leading role for me and the film ended up making $150 million. I had the best time of my life. I’m a big advocate of not having just one thing in your life, but at that moment it was a massive opportunity.
“Playing golf is way harder than acting and to be a golfer, at collegiate or professional level, would have taken everything that I had. So now I just play wherever and whenever I can. I just take my clubs with me on set.”
She grew up in Florida beside a golf course and her dad encouraged her to play. “It was right in my back yard and he would just talk me into thinking I was good. I thought we were just hanging out and then I would realise we had been pitching and putting for two hours.
“All the girls I grew up with playing the game, whether they are pro’s now or not, I still have a relationship with. Making friends on the course is really easy. In fact the girls from my first high school year and I went out on the town the other night, reliving our glory days!”
She played her first two years with DP World Tour pro’s Matt Wallace and Connor Syme in the Alfred Dunhill Links Team Championship and says she thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Just the experience of playing in front of people, being on the driving range, being there with the fans and seeing the children. It’s all about the kids for me. The crowd are out there rooting for us and I think that’s what makes the tournament so special.
“I remember last year playing at Kingsbarns in a 40 mph gale and I really enjoyed it and I played well. I figured out how to play there. It’s what’s so special about Links golf. You don’t have to be the best golfer but you have to adapt, to think your way round. You’re playing different kinds of shots, and I think I got really creative.
“Then I also remember the first time I played the Old Course. I was level par and I was saying ‘this course is so easy what’s everyone talking about’. Then I went back and played it again and I don’t even know what I shot. That says it all about Links golf.
“Every time I play the Dunhill I want to play every day and pretend that I’m a professional golfer. There’s an elevated energy to the Dunhill and I really want to perform well. As an ambassador for the R&A I also I want to grow the game and get people excited to get out there and play.
“People look at my swing and some of them think I’m a pro, but there’s more to it than that if you want to win. Right now, I’m playing pretty well. I’d love to win, but certainly to make the cut for Sunday. That would be nice,” she said.
