WHEN Callum Tarren left Darlington behind to embark on university life in the United States four-and-a-half years ago, he was just a boy. Now, as he plots a route on to the European Tour from his County Durham roots, he feels more like a man.

Tarren, the two-time winner of the Durham County Championship, has always had aspirations to step up to life on Tour and now, after learning valuable life lessons in Virginia, he wants to give everything he possesses to making a success out of the sport he loves.

“I know I have the talent, so with the right mind-set I believe I can do it,” said Tarren. “I know it’s not going to be easy, when you think of the vast numbers of golfers out there all with the same aim, but I know I have the ability.

“I look at the Tour at the minute and I see those on there who I used to play against when we were kids. There’s Tommy Fleetwood, Alexander Levy, Tyrrel Hatton ... young players like that who I would have come up against in nationwide comps or in country matches. I look at them thinking I can do that.”

Tarren is looking for sponsorship ahead of his first full year on the professional circuit. With financial rewards only half decent if he can win regularly on the PGA EuroPro Tour, he knows any backing he can come up with locally will help his cause.

Plenty of the region’s golfers have struggled to make an impact on the EuroPro Tour in the past, so the 24-year-old wants to ensure everything is right before he embarks on the qualifying stage at Slaley Hall on March 31. He is already pretty assured of a place on the full calendar if finances allow it.

“I’m working a bit at Close House at the minute to help me but the main thing for me is to get the money in to help me get to that next level,” said Tarren, who will be playing out of The Wynyard Club this year and has got his scoring average down to 71.6.

“A lot of people don’t realise just how important money is when you are trying to make progress as a professional golfer. It’s so hard because every aspiring golfer out there wants to do the same thing, so it helps to be able to find the financial backing from somewhere. It would take away some of the pressures.”

After his back-to-back Durham County Championship triumphs at Seaton Carew and South Moor in 2009 and 2010, Tarren became the first Radford University student to make it on to the Big South All-Academic Team in six years.

The following year was when the former Eastbourne Academy pupil really started to deliver Stateside. Over the course of a successful year, he earned three top ten finishes and credible placings at Wendy’s Kiawah Classic and the ODU/OBX Invitational. He also set a course record at the Williamsburg Club by shooting 64.

Alongside all of those he graduated with a degree in marketing with finance, which should certainly help him with numbers when he is working out the distances on the fairways and greens. He could have been working as a financial advisor in Washington DC, but the lure of his golf-bag proved too strong.

“A lot of people think that when you go out to America for golf that that’s all you do,” said Tarren. “There’s much more to it than that. As well as getting my education, so I have something else to fall back on, the whole experience was fantastic and I would recommend it to anyone.

“It’s the life skills you learn as well. I have matured as a golfer but I have also matured as a person because of my time over there. I could have stayed there and tried to go down the American route, but it boils down to money. That’s why I am back and determined to make a success in a golfing career.”

If there are any companies interested in sponsoring Callum Tarren on the EuroPro Tour this year email ctarren@radford.edu or call 07964 321685.