Wharton arrives at Concord Golf Club for this week’s Golf Challenge NSW Open on the back of a tie for third at TPS Hunter Valley but still with his back against the wall.

He knows that no one expects him to win this week; in fact, he thrives on it.

He’s playing to prove everyone wrong, but to also prove one person right.

Wharton came through the junior system in Victoria mixing it with the likes of five-time PGA TOUR winner Marc Leishman yet was told repeatedly that he didn’t have the game to be great.

He was just 19 when he turned professional in 2006, made the cut at the 2007 New Zealand Open and was just 23 when he finished tied for 32nd in a 2010 Australian Masters field that included Tiger Woods.

In 2016 he moved to America to try and break into the big time and played the Alfred Dunhill Links on the European Tour but his father Gary’s diagnosis of a terminal illness in 2017 took away his reason for playing.

“My dad was my coach and caddie and he passed away of cancer,” shares Wharton, struggling to suppress the emotions that still sit so close to the surface.

“It hit me pretty hard.

“He was given a year to live and I didn’t play golf in that year and then proceeding for a few years, I just didn’t play.”

A tie for 53rd at the Victorian PGA in October of 2018 would be Wharton’s final event for almost three years.

At that point it had all the hallmarks of his last event ever as a professional golfer.

There was a year-and-a-half spent studying psychology at university, that investment in the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and ‘The Father of Motivation’ Wayne Dyer as much of a way to understand his own mental makeup than to help others.

In a similar vein he rebuilt his own body in the gym as he assisted others as a personal trainer and then three weeks out from the first stage of ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Qualifying School last April decided to give golf one final crack.

With the guidance of his father’s childhood best friend and noted golf instructor Dennis Sheehy, Wharton based himself at RACV Royal Pines on the Gold Coast for an intensive reawakening of golf skills that he had let sit dormant.

He finished third at First Stage at Lakelands Golf Club to advance to final stage at Moonah Links where he shot 69 in the final round to finish tied for 17th and secure full status.

The progression since has been a steady reintroduction to the point where he arrives at Concord 28th on the Order of Merit and the highest he has ever been on the Official World Golf Ranking.

Embracing his underdog status, Wharton was five-over through 12 holes last Friday at Cypress Lakes only to play the following 12 holes in seven-under par, a bogey at the final hole on Sunday all that prevented him from finishing outright third.

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He has proved that the game is still there, and the motivation remains very much the same.

“Just Dad. He’d want me to do it,” Wharton said for the reason behind his return to tournament golf.

“I didn’t want to be that guy who sat at the pub saying, ‘What if?’

“Now I appreciate being here a lot more than I used to.

“Dealing with what I’ve dealt with, golf’s easy.”