LONDON (PA) -- England's most accomplished amateur, Gary Wolstenholme, is turning professional at the age of 48 -- and doing so with one big regret.

The two-time British Amateur champion, who has represented his country 218 times over 21 years and famously beat Tiger Woods in the 1995 Walker Cup, is entering the first stage of the European Tour qualifying school in Scotland next week.

He has already received an invitation to the following week's Kazakhstan Open on the second-tier European Challenge Tour and hopes he might then play on the main circuit at the Portugal Masters next month.

But what it all means is that he will not take a role he has always craved: Walker Cup captain.

"That's one of the few regrets I have," he admitted. "But once the idea of turning pro was thrown at me by one of my coaches three months ago, the more I thought about it the more sense it made.

"It's a little bit frightening because it's a massive change, but it's also hugely exciting," he said. "There are people who thought I would never do it, but I've decided to do it now to get prepared for seniors golf at 50 and because my amateur status prevented me taking a couple of job opportunities."

Wolstenholme is currently out of work, trying to sell his house in Market Harborough and back living with his mother in Lancashire.

"The English Golf Union are helping me with some of the Tour school expenses. It's not a huge amount, but they said they would like to because of the efforts I've put in over 21 years," he said.

"I'll be going to Kazakhstan not with an empty bank account, but on a very tight budget," he explained. "I'm considering dropping the price of my house to sell it to raise capital, but I don't want to do that.

"It's extraordinary how things seem to happen to me -- whether there's an angel looking on I don't know," he added. "I didn't think life was treating me terribly well, but now it's all action and adventure."

In June, Wolstenholme, who played in five Walker Cups and is Britain and Ireland's all-time leading points-scorer, battled his way into a playoff against European Tour players at the U.S. Open qualifier at Walton Heath.

After losing the playoff, he traveled to Torrey Pines as a reserve, but was not allowed to practice on the course. He made the field when Sean O'Hair withdrew and was almost last after rounds of 83 and 82.

"I simply didn't play very well there," he said. "I wasn't the only one."

Indeed, Ian Poulter was 14 over when he quit with a wrist problem -- and look at him now.

Wolstenholme has twice competed in the Masters as British Amateur champion, and in the first of them in 1992 he partnered Arnold Palmer and led the tournament by going to the turn in 3 under par.

Sadly, though, he came home in 39 and so missed becoming the only British Amateur ever to break par in a round at Augusta. He missed the halfway cut then and again in 2004.

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