Former Crieff pro John Stark
dies at age of 76

FROM THE PGA WEBSITE
By NAT SYLVESTER
Scottish golf is mourning the passing of former Crieff Golf Club professional John Stark at the age of 76.
Glasgow-born Stark, who as a kid was nicknamed Hagen, led a fascinating life that included encounters with Ben Hogan, a long spell coaching abroad in Sweden, and a role as chieftain of the Highland Games.
He was also captain of the Scottish PGA in 1976 and a regular at the R&J Junior Golf Centre at Open Championships where he introduced hundreds of youngsters to the game.
Stark remained passionate about the game long after he retired from Crieff where he was head pro for 35 years.
Former Scottish PGA regional secretary Peter Lloyd described Stark as 'a wonderful figure for golf'.
"John was a totally inspiring character, he was of an older breed of generation that always had opinion and thought - he was really special," said Lloyd.
"He was immensely well-respected by all, still coaching at the Open Championships until recently and just a wonderful figure for the region and the game of golf and will be sadly missed." Golf chat with Hogan, friendships with Zulus, policing some of Glasgow's toughest streets and fronting Highland Games - life was never dull for John Stark. John packed more into his 76 years than many would in several lifetimes.
His career with the PGA spanned more than 55 years, a period in which the standing of the club pro changed dramatically. Stark entered the golf profession at a time when often clubs could only afford to employ pros on a weekend basis or employ them in dual greenkeeper-professional capacity and it certainly wasn't a lucrative occupation.
"After the war only two pros in Scotland had cars!" recalled Stark in an exclusive interview with Golf Pages just over two years ago. Golf was very much in Stark's blood - his mother was a scratch player, an uncle was a pro at Gourock and his grandparents were the club master and mistress of Bearsden Golf Club where he was evacuated from Glasgow during the war. He honed his game at Bearsden and his grandparents quickly nicknamed him Hagen after the great Walter.
A promising playing career developed, netting him junior international honours and Walker Cup trials but it floundered when he lost two years to National Service and then a subsequent year as a bobby on the beat in Clydebank - at the time one of the toughest parts of Glasgow.
While his playing skills had been diluted by three years of inactivity, Stark's club-making skills, learned after the war with John Letters and Tiger Murray, soon landed him back in golf with an assistant's position to John Panton at Glenbervie.
Stark's career then took an unusual twist in the 1950s when he hopped across the North Sea to work in Sweden at first Linkoping and then Atvidaberg golf clubs. He was there eight years, helping develop the latter club from scratch, taking it from a membership of approximately 20 to 200 plus.
Among his pupils were SAAB engineers who first got him thinking about swing planes, a theme later developed by John Jacobs, whom Stark described as the 'father of modern day coaching'. One of the highlights of Stark's career was a first hand insight into arguably golf's greatest ever player - Ben Hogan. It came at the Open at Carnoustie in 1953 where Stark got a close up glimpse of what made the great man tick.
On the eve of the tournament, after a practice round, Stark, with his boss Panton, shared a drink with Hogan, not to mention the 1947 and 1951 Open champions Fred Daly and Max Faulkner.
"It was one of the few times in my life when I kept my mouth shut and ears open," said Stark who had missed out in final qualifying by only one shot after running up an 11 at the 7th. "It was a fascinating experience," said Stark of his encounter.
"I remember someone asking Hogan why he hit the ball to the left at Carnoustie's first hole which is a very dangerous drive indeed because there's a hillock down the left, with a burn alongside it.
"Hogan said that if he was going to change it into a short hole then where he drove down the left, was where he would put the tee! He was so accurate with his drives, he could put the ball on a sixpence.
"He dissected the course like a scientist. He wasn't an escapologist like Seve. Hogan's approach was that you had 14 drives to turn a course into 18 short holes. By doing that you turned a course into 18 par-3s and he reasoned that if you don't pick up 2s occasionally you're not very good."
After a lifetime in the game Stark kept his passion for it to the end although he was never too enamoured with some modern trends - notably in equipment technology, course design and pace of play.
"Modern courses? It's almost like you've got a bloody great park in front of you with tons of green. If you can't hit one of those it's like missing your mouth with your fork," he said. "New golf courses to me are just elongated driving ranges. In the old days they had to manufacture shots and that's the difference. I hate this driving range sort of thing.
"Why do people still love coming to play links courses? Because that's the way God intended them, the wind and rain, the elements have made them what they are with a little help from man, and created this wonderful moving and flowing thing.
"The biggest change in my lifetime has been the equipment. In my day we didn't even know what a sweet spot (on the clubface) was - we just knew if you didn't hit it right it just about took your damn hands off."
In a wide-ranging career, Stark also had regular coaching stints in South Africa which brought him close ties with Zulu friends and one of his proudest achievements was organising fund-raising tournaments in Scotland to build classrooms for a Zulu school.
Stark was steeped in the traditions of a long line of great Scottish pros, but unique as well, growing rare varieties of potatoes as a hobby and becoming still probably the only club pro, and captain of the PGA of Scotland, to have been Chieftain of the Crieff Highland Games.
A great character who will be sadly missed.
John Stark, 1931 - 2008