There are not many DP World Tour members who do not have a Wikipedia page but do have a page where you can book them for a lesson – but then there are not many DP World Tour members like Michael Hollick.
At the age of 38, the South African is currently embarking on his rookie season after an excellent campaign on the Sunshine Tour saw him finish seventh on the Order of Merit in 2025 and take the final available DP World Tour card.
After three top tens helped earn him a Rolex Series debut at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, he currently sits in the top 35 on the Race to Dubai Rankings Delivered by DP World, so you would think he would no longer be thinking about coaching.
You would be wrong.
Because for Hollick, teaching and being taught has been a vital part of a 14-year professional career that started brightly but then saw him go nine years without a win, and almost walk away.
“In 2022/23 I took a step away from golf because it got to that stage where... it’s not enough to sustain you, certainly if you want to have a family, so that’s where I got into the coaching,” he says.
“I genuinely think that every professional golfer should coach at some stage. Maybe not your top 50 guys in the world but the rest of the guys who are all equally as good and are making a living out of it.
“Coaching really does open your eyes to how lucky we are to be playing professional golf tournaments for a living and playing the courses we play and going to the places that we see.
“Coaching is a very difficult thing, it’s not easy, you’re on your feet the whole day, it’s long days, you’re dealing with all different types of people and skill levels.
“The one thing with coaching is you can’t fake it. You can go only so far with someone if you don’t know what you’re talking about because someone is going to ask you the hard questions at some stage and that’s when you’ve really got to know your stuff.
“You’ve got to really think about the stuff that you are saying to someone because I can’t talk to a beginner the same way I can talk to a professional because they won’t know what I’m talking about.
“You learn a hell of a lot, there’s no question about it. In terms of my own playing it definitely helped because you are always in that golf frame of mind: you are always talking about golf, you are always holding a golf club, you are always demonstrating something.
“I think it reinforces a lot of good habits and I think it just makes you a lot more aware of your own game. Especially when we are out there playing tournament golf, we’ve got to concentrate for five hours at a time, I think it’s really beneficial.”
The club where Hollick has done his teaching is Mount Edgecombe Country Club Estate in Durban, a place where he also lived with his parents for over 20 years.
Before that the family lived on another golf estate in Johannesburg where Hollick first picked up a club at the age of five and was encouraged to play the game by his dad.
Hollick Senior is, in his son’s words, “one of those people who whatever he did he wanted to be the best at it”, so despite only taking up the game in his 20s, he soon became immersed in golfing circles.
Friendships blossomed with South African professionals such as Allan Henning and Derek James and when the family moved back to Durban, golfing connections brought Hollick into contact with a man who would go on to be South African golfing royalty.
“When I was 11 or 12 they had the South African Amateur at Mount Edgecombe and Trevor Immelman at that stage was the number one or number two amateur in the world,” said Hollick.
“Him and his brother Mark, they came and stayed at our house for ten days or so when he was playing in the South African Amateur. That was certainly my biggest inspiration because I got to spend more than a week with this guy who, as an 11-year-old, was like Tiger Woods in my eyes.
“As time went on every time he came back to Durban I would get to spend more and more time with him and watch his pro career watch him and win the Masters. He was one of my biggest inspirations.
“Every now and then I’ll get a message on Instagram. His dad Johan is still in touch with me and my dad.”
With golf seemingly in his blood, you would imagine there was only one route to go but like many South Africans, Hollick was a multi-sportsperson.
He played cricket, rugby, hockey and swam but at 16 it came down to a decision between tennis and golf and Hollick chose the latter.
Amateur success would follow as he won the inter-provincial title with KwaZulu-Natal at several age groups and the South African Boys on his own, beating Branden Grace in the final.
He had the chance to go to both Augusta State and Columbus State colleges in the United States but stayed at home and in 2012 entered the paid ranks.
After a solid start to Sunshine Tour life, he won the Sun Sibaya Challenge in 2015 but would finish outside the top 50 on the Order of Merit for nine consecutive seasons.
In 2020 he reached a crossroads and coaching, this time receiving it, would play a vital role in which way he turned.
“My wife now and I were in Durban and we had both been recently divorced and got together and I was at a stage of my career where I hadn’t won for five years, maybe had the odd good finish but I wasn’t shooting the lights out by any means,” he says.
“My dad said to me: ‘you can’t carry on going this way, you’re 32 years old, you can’t just keep kicking the door and hoping something happens. You’ve got to make a change or stop playing golf and find something else to do’.
“I moved to Johannesburg with my wife and we lived there for about two-and-a-half years and I started working with Neil Cheetham.
“I had played a few Sunshine Tour events with him over the years because towards the end of his career he came out and played the Sunshine Tour. From our first meeting together and sit down and range session I knew straight off the bat that this was the guy for me.
“We got on well and he obviously knew my potential because he had played with me and obviously saw something in it.
“That was a massive part in steadying the ship and getting me in the right direction. I didn’t have any instant success from it, it took two or three years before I really started seeing consistent and good results but he always said to me from the start, ‘we are going to get to where you want to be. Whatever it takes, we’ve just to work through this process’.
“And we have done that. It hasn’t been a smooth ride by any means.
“I’d been to Q School twice, I’d always dreamed of playing on the DP World Tour. But the further down the line we went in my career on the Sunshine Tour the further that dream got away. From South Africa it’s a massive expense to get to Q School and to play one week and have a really good week is not easy as well.
“In 2024 I won the Zimbabwe Open and that really unlocked everything for me because I had a really good season. That was our first event of the season and I won our last event of the season as well and secured that card.
“After having such a long period of not winning, when you win one, it definitely changes your mindset.”
Starting the season low in Category 18, Hollick’s starts would be limited so he was once again faced with a choice: go to face the “complete unknown” in Australia and fight to keep his card or, in all likelihood, play a limited schedule and return home next year.
He headed Down Under and kickstarted the run of results that have him as an early-season breakout star.
“I’d never been to Australia,” he said. “I was fortunate that my friend Devan Valenti who I had grown up with at Mount Edgecombe had been living over in Sydney for the last ten years and he messaged me and said ‘if you’re coming out to Australia to play in these event, if you don’t have a caddie, I would love to come and caddie. I’ve been working so hard I’m due a holiday’.
“I said ‘cool’ and that was the best thing. It was like having a friend with me, having a tour guide with me, having a caddie with me so for two weeks I didn’t really have to think about anything other than playing golf.
“When you’re out in a new country it can be sometimes a little bit overwhelming trying to get everything organised and figure out where you’re going to stay and the best places to eat so he really made that so easy for me. It was an awesome experience.”
He missed the cut at the BMW Australian PGA Championship but a top five the following week in a star-studded field at the Crown Australian Open showed that Hollick could mix it with the best - and earned him a place at The Open.
“My dad reminds me all the time, that first event in Brisbane, I was on the range standing behind Adam Scott and I’m sending videos to my friends and my dad going, ‘look at this guy’s swing, it’s a joke, how does he not win every week’. And then I managed to beat him in Melbourne,” he said.
“That tournament in Melbourne really gave me so much confidence and belief, to go out there and to beat an Adam Scott, a Rory McIlroy and play under that pressure environment, when I came back and played Dunhill and Mauritius it was just another golf tournament.
“I had two decent weeks so it’s been a good learning experience but I am 100 per cent comfortable playing in this environment.
“The Desert Classic is the biggest event that I’ve played and it was an incredible experience. I think the more you mix in these circles playing with the likes of Rory McIlroy and Adam Scott and Patrick Reed and these guys that I've always just watched on TV, it’s not as intimidating the more you get to mix in that environment.”
With success and comfort comes a change in ambition, with Hollick now eyeing the season-ending DP World Tour Play-Offs rather than the top 100 on the Race to Dubai to earn full playing privileges.
Of course a win would also secure Hollick’s place on Tour for 2027 and beyond and this week’s Joburg Open on home soil would be the perfect place to get it.
“I feel like I’m at the level with my golf that I could nick one at some stage,” says. “If I put myself in the right place and give myself a shout going into a Sunday round of golf I feel like I’ve got what it takes to get the job done so it’s just a matter of keeping the foot down and playing as well as I can.
“I definitely fancy my chances at Houghton.”
There are not many players who arrive on Tour at 38, with at least half a career behind them and much to learn.
But success in golf is often about more than golf – a solitary game that is mentally testing, you can learn as much about how to succeed outside the ropes as you can inside them.
“I’m 38 now, I’ve got two kids, I've got a wife and we’ve got another business back home so for me golf is not the be all and end all of life,” says Hollick.
“It was that way before I started coaching and when you’re playing under that sort of pressure constantly, knowing that that is the only thing in your life and that is what you spend every second of your life on and you don’t get the results it’s very disheartening. That’s why there are so many golfers that suffer with depression and stuff like that.
“For me, it’s an absolute privilege to play professional golf, it’s a privilege to be on the DP World Tour, I’m playing with the best golfers in the world, some of the best venues in the world and I’m of the mindset now that things are not as important as we make them out to be.
“When I’m with my kids and I videocall them, that’s reality. However my round of golf goes, as important as it is for my career, it’s also not defining what life is, it’s not life or death. We do the best we can but at the end of the day it’s another job the same as everyone else has got a job, we’re just in different sectors.”
At 41 events into his DP World Tour career and nine into his rookie season, Michael Hollick would be the first to admit he has plenty to learn. But he already has the experience to handle whatever is to come.
