Player Profiles: Tony Johnstone

Tony Johnstone

Tony Johnstone was born in Bulawayo, Rhodesia and attended Christian Brothers College. He lives in Sunningdale in England.

Johnstone turned professional in 1979 and spent his career playing mainly on the Sunshine Tour and in Europe. He won six times on the European Tour and finished a career best seventh on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1992. His most prestigious victory came at the 1992 British PGA Championship.

He won seventeen times on the Sunshine Tour, including one co-sanctioned event also included in his European Tour win tally, and he topped that tour’s Order of Merit in 1988/89 and 1993/94. He represented Zimbabwe in international competition many times. Johnstone is noted for his excellent short game and topped the European Tour’s short game statistics in 1998, 1999 and 2000.

Johnstone was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2004, but instead of ending his playing career, the golfer volunteered to undergo a revolutionary drug treatment. The MS went into remission and he made his European Senior Tour debut shortly after turning fifty in 2006.

In 2008 he won his first EST event, the Jersey Seniors Classic and his second in 2009 at the Travis Perkins plc Senior Masters. Johnstone had four top 10 finishes in 2010, including a seventh place finish at the OKI Castellón Senior Tour Championship and sixth at the Casa Serena Open and he finished the season ranked 34th.

Although Johnstone remains without a victory in 2011, he finished in the top 10 three times including an eighth place at the Benahavis Senior Masters, a ninth at the van Lanschot Senior Open and 10th at the Senior Masters. He currently ranks 41st on the European Senior Tour money list.

Johnstone, who also works as a golf broadcaster and drives a vintage Morgan, enjoys hunting, gardening collecting antique books.