Grant Dowie shaking hands with European Tour player Callum Macaulay (image by courtesy of Hugh Hunter).

GRANT DOWIE -------- “AYE A KEN PAL”

By HUGH HUNTER
The death of top Clackmannan junior golfer Grant Dowie from Dollar in a car crash recently caused a great shock locally followed by great sadness.
Grant, a junior member at Alloa Golf Club was making great progress with his golf and had the ambition of becoming a golf professional. On the local golf scene he featured regularly among the top junior golfers in Clackmannan county, having won both the stroke play championship (2007) and match play championship (2008).
Alloa golf professional David Herd contributed a considerable amount to Grant’s development.
“Grant started as a young boy with the unconventional golf grip of left hand below right, but he changed with a lot of effort and became an elite local junior with a very low handicap,” said David.
Clackmannan county president Sam Kinnaird and Alloa captain Hugh Hunter were also full of praise.
“Grant was a great supporter of junior golf and featured in county golf teams and the Scottish boys championship, the most recent being the Gary Harvey Trophy at Dunkeld where the Clackmannan county boys came very close to a win, helped by Grant’s efforts. It was good to see his confidence improving in these events.”
There was a huge turn-out for the memorial service in Dollar last week with local golfers, his team-mates from the Clackmannan county smartly turned out in county golf attire, friends from Alva Academy and Elmwood College where he was studying.
What came across was Grant’s likeable nature, his quiet unassuming manner which was always evident on the golf course - indeed a thoroughly nice person, and a credit to his family. In the present world of junior golf with an increasing number of spoiled brats--- luckily still a tiny minority - Grant was a breath of fresh air, demonstrating the true ideals of the golf game :- trying your best, accepting what happens and if it all goes wrong, no histrionics or club throwing; a real golfing model for others.
Knowing that November 5 would have been Grant’s 18th birthday, his fellow students at Elmwood organised a tribute golf competition and it was well supported with 58 golfers drawn from throughout Scotland including good local representation from Clackmannan juniors and Alloa Golf Club members.
The event was won by Marc Smith who scored 66 and received the trophy of a mounted golf club from Grant’s father Kenny. It was a very good day ,the weather was kind and good support for his family and friends.

GRANT DOWIE --- 05/11/1991 -- 25/10/2009