Chasing the little white ball
T
More than 100 years after it was axed, the world’ fastest growing
leisure pursuit returns to the Olympic Games. Dan Morris meets a
man who knows why golf will be swinging again this summer in Rio
he last time enthusiast amateurs
chasing a little white ball, aka golf,
were accorded athletic status was at
the Summer Olympiad in St Louis,
Missouri in 1904. It was the first time that
Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s re-creation
of Ancient Greece’s nude sportsfest, were
held outside Europe.
It is uncertain whether golf cut the
mustard in 8th century BC Athens, but the
21st century rulers of the world’s biggest
sporting jamboree are cutting some slack
to a game invented 400 years before Coubertin’s brainwave.
The IOC has voted to reinstate golf into
the Olympics this year in Brazil – and Tokyo
in 2020. The 121st International Olympic
Committee session in 2009 were persuaded
by the rapid expansion and globalisation of
the sport. This year’s golf will feature men’s
and women’s individual competitions.
Among those making the case to the
IOC was The Royal and Ancient Golf Club
– the home of golf – and a host of leading
players and rising stars, including 16-yearold 2009 British Amateur champion
Matteo Manassero.
Royal and Ancient chief executive and
International Golf Federation president
Peter Dawson said: “We’re extremely grateful they were able to join us to
help communicate the genuine interest
world-class players of all ages share in golf
becoming an Olympic sport.”
Whether players of all ages in Britain are
joining what is claimed to be a global rush is
debateable. It seems fusty tradition dies hard,
and has yet to convert Generation Y.
But one man who’s been trying to turn
the tide is Buckingham Golf Club’s master
of the irons, Gregor Hannah.
The club’s head professional, Greg
Hannah is a true-born Scot to the manor
44
born – growing up in Leven, Fife, just 14
miles from golf ’s ancestral home at the
Royal and Ancient in St Andrews where
the game’s march to world conquest began.
The first documented record of the
game is a 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament, in which a royal edict forbade
games of football and golf as these were
a distraction from archery practice for
military purposes.
And Gregor’s English fiefdom for
the past 18 years has been the sprawling
6,000-yards of beautiful Buckingham countryside that is the 18-hole Parkland Course
on the Tingewick Road out of the town.
The 6,162 yards of breathtaking
scenery belies the scale of the task facing
aficionados of the game on the Parkland
Course which has a challenging par 71.
But for a man with golf in his blood, the
really big challenge is how to change perceptions that the game is over-priced, snobby
and far too difficult to master.
Scotland’s most celebrated 16th-century humanist scholar George Buchanan
said golf was “clearly unsuitable” for
women. His verdict came after reports that
Mary Queen of Scots had been playing the
game while her husband Lord Darnley was
murdered in 1567.
But today the game won’t be joining
Darnley. As far as Greg Hannah is concerned, golf is far from dying. Clubs like
Buckingham just need to spruce up their
arcane rules. As he explained when I met
him at the Tingewick Road club.
Gregor Hannah’s whole life has centred
around the game of golf. Born and raised
in Scotland, he recalls how the membership fee at his local club in Leven in 1979
was £3. Compare that to a junior membership fee now of £110! Gregor took to
the game like the proverbial, and proved
his youthfully-honed talents on the British
junior and the Scottish amateur circuits,
winning representative honours for his
county at Boys, Youth and Men’s Championships Level.
In 1984, aged 18, Greg won a scholarship to study in the United States, starting
out at the New Mexico Military Institute
before switching the next year to the University of Nevada in Reno.
Gregor returned to the UK but not
before honing his golfing skills competing
in amateur tournaments up and down the
West Coast.
Back home from the Land of the Free,
Gregor went to work for Colin Clingan at
Windmill Hill Golf Club, Milton Keynes.
Then in the summer of 1997, came the
offer of a pro position at Parkland and he
moved to Buckingham. He settled in, got
married, and decided to stay.
With his bluff is mannerisms and bellowing voice (to match his 6ft frame), he’s
been trying fan the winds of change.
Greg sees his main task as to get more
and younger people into the game. And
to do that will require dispelling misconceptions. And getting some trickle-down
from the exploding wealth of the game.
“Professionals haven’t put enough back
into the grassroots game, and the money
paid to them is obscene,” he says.
But he feels golf is having a resurgence
with the rise of youngsters like Spieth and
McIlroy, drawing in the “insta-book” generation. And companies like Topgolf are
encouraging the game’s fun aspects.
Right on! “The best way to get people
into golf is to put a club in their hands,”
he says. At Buckingham this is a one-man
battle against the old guard mired in the
past. Let’s just hope passionate advocates
like Greg Hannah will win the war.