Stuart Manley

Began playing at the age of ten at Mountain Ash GC in South Wales with his dad, David. Could have been a soccer player, had trials at the age of 16 with Manchester United, Crystal Palace and Luton, but chose a career in golf, starting a four year scholarship at West Florida University in 1998. Played in the 2003 Walker Cup at Ganton in Yorkshire, where Britain and Ireland kept the trophy by a single point after he was sent out last in the concluding singles and kept his unbeaten record in the match by beating Trip Kuehne.
Turned professional in later 2003, and immediately joined the Challenge Tour, finishing 90th in his first season. At the end of that year he came through the qualifying school to earn a place on the European Tour for the first time. However, Manley has consistently failed to establish himself, he is yet to retain his card by finishing in the top 115 at season's end, and has only regained it via the Challenge Tour in 2007 and qualifying school in 2008, 2010 and 2013.
Manley graduated from the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2012, returning to the Challenge Tour in 2013 where he won the Finnish Challenge. He narrowly missed out on winning a European Tour card, finishing 19th on the Challenge Tour rankings. However, he came 10th in European Tour Qualifying School to earn a 2014 European Tour category.
Made a dramatic start to the 2014 season, losing a play-off for the Hong Kong Open to Miguel Angel Jiménez having chipped in for birdie on the final hole to move into a tie for the lead. The previous month he had claimed the tenth card at the European Tour Qualifying School ? his fourth successful visit in ten years ? and travelled straight from Spain to Australia to represent Wales in the World Cup of Golf, where in his final round he had one of the most bizarre level par 72s ever recorded. After starting with two birdies at Royal Melbourne, he had a hole-in-one on the short third before carding an 11 on the following hole en route to finishing tied eighth. The Hong Kong near-miss was not enough for him to retain his card in 2014 and after playing mostly on the European Challenge Tour in 2015, he was back at the Qualifying School again, this time walking away with the 13th card. Would return to Qualifying School in 2016, where he claimed the 16th of 30 cards handed out.
2017 Notes: Was runner-up at the Joburg Open just a shot back of winner Darren Fichardt. It was his best finish since he was runner-up at the Hong Kong Open in 2014. Manley was T-11th at the The Rocco Forte Open. This will be Manley's first major and Open Championship start after playing in 196 European Tour events and 159 European Challenge Tour events.