THE WAY THEY WERE
Gleneagles pro staff of yesteryear (left to right): Alastair Morrison (retired and living in Edinburgh), Donald Ross, still in pro golf and, according to Hugh McCorquodale, "still with a scratch handicap in patter," the boss, Ian Marchank, retired and living in Auchterarder and, according to Hugh, "was and still is a true gentleman of Scottish professional golf,"and Hugh McCorquodale himself wearing a younger man's clothes). COLIN FARQUHARSON writes:
Scottishgolfview's belated tribute to Finlay Morris following a similar tragic death in a car accident of a young golf prospect, Ben Enoch, has stirred a lot of memories for readers of that vintage. Royal Aberdeen member Bill Hogg responded by passing on pictures of the Scotland and GB&I boys teams which included Finlay and Bill.
The Scotland team picture also showed Hugh McCorquodale who has a fascinating story of his own to tell. He has sent the following message.
Hugh McCorquodale, the club pro who turned
his back on golf at the age of 28 to become
a welder at Ardersier
From Hugh McCorquodaleOne of the members at Inverness Golf Club mentioned to me the Scottishgolfview.com article about Finlay Morris and it certainly brought back memories of just how good a golfer he was.
Memories too of the others in the Scottish boys’ team of 1962 at Royal Mid Surrey. Ashamedly, I failed to keep track of them, other than the ones who progressed to very fine professional careers.
The likes of John Campbell, Billy Hogg and David Black I never again encountered. My only claim to fame in that team and possibly totally unique was that I played a Scotsman in the English team.
At that time Mr (Brian) Barnes reckoned that he was English but as we all know he later decided he would prefer to be Scottish and in actual fact the Scottish team should have got the point he won for beating me.
I had 12 years in professional Golf but resigned my post at Barassie at the age of 28 in 1974 and took up a career with an American company, McDermott Scotland, who fabricated offshore structures at a new and very large yard at Ardersier on the Moray Firth.
I played very little golf over the next 26 years, mainly through pressure of work, and when the yard closed in 2000 I took early retirement.
On leaving Barassie it took seven years before being given back my amateur status in 1981. I have played my golf at Inverness for 35 years, unfortunately, to pretty poor standard.
Scottishgolfview.com has run a couple of articles on my youngest son Murdo who is pro at Playitas, where the course is nearing 18-hole completion, in Fuertaventura in the Canary Isles where he is very happy and with a lovely family. We have been fortunate in that he has been based in some lovely places for golf since leaving Inchmarlo Golf Centre …. the Red Sea in Egypt, the Algarve and Fuertaventura. We are very lucky.
"Murdo and Ana have now a son Andrew as well as their daughter Alba and the family continues to enjoy a warm weather lifestyle with Murdo shaping the golf swings of predominately German and Swiss visitors."
Colin Farquharson writes:
Glasgow-born Hugh McCorquodale, a schoolboy international and contemporary of the late lamented Finlay Morris (Cawder) and Billy Hogg (Royal Aberdeen), to name but two, won the Scottish assistants championship in 1967, having begun his career as a professional as an assistant at Gleneagles where his boss, Ian Marchbank (now retired, of course, and living in Auchterarder) was “a nicer man I have never met.”
Hugh’s first full club pro job was at Kilmacolm before he moved to Barassie. During his comparatively short pro career, Hugh was well enough regarded to be appointed West PGA captain and he was also a Scottish PGA committee member.
One of the best known names in Scottish pro golf at the time he made a sudden and shock clean break with pro golf in 1974. Hugh was quoted in the newspapers as saying:
“I’ve been thinking of doing this for a while. There is not enough trade from the club members alone and I don’t have the capital to put in the stock needed to attract outside customers.
“It’s just not worth the worry, so the best thing I can do is to sell up and move out and look for work outside the game of golf.”
It was a bold decision but Hugh has no regrets although he says "I still get strange looks and questions about the reasons for my leaving professional golf.
“It is nice to look back even though some of it might have been a bit tough,” he recalls.
"To come from a fee-paying education at Alan Glen's School in Glasgow, then 12 years in the enviable environment of professional golf to become a welder among the 'Bears' of the heavy steel fabrication industry who had taken the 5hr trail north, up the notorious A9, from the Central Belt to the offshore fabrication yards in the Highland outposts of Ardersier and Nigg. "Welders are often referred to as 'Bears' and are comparable to the grizzly variety, except the grizzly ones smile more often.
"Many may have found this a wake-up call too far but for the next 26 years, as I progressed from the shop floor welder to production manager with responsibility over as many as 600 men, I found every minute exhilarating."
Labels: THE WAY THEY WERE
posted by Colin |
See story on its own page | Monday, June 22, 2009
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