Billy Turrell is at the cross roads on the road to becoming a professional.

Having made the grade as a Sussex player four years ago, he decided to have a stab at trying to get a living from the game.

He didn't get very far when coming up against the daunting hurdle of attempting to qualify for his Tour card and rather lost heart after that.

In this respect he was far from alone. Like so many hopefuls he opted for lesser competitions and you had to feel for Turrell when he failed at the Tour qualifying school. He was scuppered by a bad first round when one of his playing partners, an American, took 109 and lost nine balls.

When he straightened his game out after an opening 78, he had 71 and 73 but that visit to Woodbury Park remains a painful memory.

Yet what really left a deeper mark on him was the subscription charges he incurred in four years at East Sussex National. He started there with a handicap of seven and in two years was down to scratch and playing for Sussex.

When joining the club, Turrell, very much a working lad, was a true blue amateur and turning pro made no difference to his status at ESN.

Visiting pros, for instance, instead of being given the courtesy of the course, were charged a high commercial rate and very soon they gave the club a wide berth.

The club saw no reason to make a distinction and last year Turrell found himself facing a bill for £3,000. So far he hasn't coughed up or gone near Little Horsted and, come to that, made very few appearances on the EuroPro Tour.

He said: "I was going to join another club but as I haven't paid the £3,000 I'm not so sure of my position.

"When I said to the people at East Sussex National that the sub was too expensive they didn't want to know, but since then there has been a change of ownership and the sub has gone down.

"The money they charged was far too much, although the facilities there are first class. When Phil Lewin was head pro there it was great and he took an interest in me, but when he left it wasn't the same. Now they are all suits and I'm not the only one to have left."

It is time for Turrell to consider his future.

"I've been thinking about it a lot and I may revert to amateur. I don't regret having turned pro and I was doing all right but I needed a caddy and they don't come cheap. What let me down was club selection, otherwise my game was good. After a few tournaments I got disheartened. I've been practising a little bit to keep my eye in, going to West Hove and the driving range at Burgess Hill. Now, I don't know what to do."

Turrell, 27, says he has to decide shortly about chucking ambitions of being a tournament pro.

"I have to make up my mind now, in a year or two I will be too old."

The former King's Manor (Shoreham) schoolboy started the game late, not touching a club until he was 13 when he joined West Hove.

And all his life he has had only one lesson. That was a single session at the David Leadbetter Golf Academy. Apart from that Billy is entirely self-taught.

But why just the one lesson with the world's best known coach?

"He tried to change my game too much," was the reply from a man not short on self belief who played four times for Sussex in 1998.

Even as a youngster he had given the game up for a long time after getting down to nine in his first year. All the signs are that he will seek re-instatement as an amateur.

He is all right for a job, helping out in the mornings at his mum's Slonk Hill riding stables where he has set up a practice area to stay in shape, but it is a world apart from the lushness of East Sussex National although a darn sight cheaper.