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“ It’s very heart-warming because something like 3,500 kids have been introduced to golf


in the past three or four years in this way ”


Certainly motivation was never a problem for Tommy. He was junior champion at Jersey Eastern when he was just 11, and spent most of his time playing golf with his brother and friends on the same piece of Grouville land where Harry Vardon practiced, without ever realising he was walking in the footsteps of the great master. Tommy went on to win 9 European Tour titles, 23 Senior Tour titles and five Order of Merits, including his most satisfying win, becoming the first foreign player to win the South African Open in 1970. The prize money for that tournament alone was enough for him to buy his mother her first home that was not rented, which he describes as a very proud moment in his life.


The £8,000 in prize money he also received by winning the Dunlop Masters, one of his last tournaments on the European Tour, was also very gratifying, although Tommy ruefully notes that most professionals earn that just by turning up these days.


Subsequent prize money has been a reward for a lot of hard work and plenty of blisters, although Tommy says that he has never really looked upon golf as hard work.


However, much more has changed in golf than just the prize money. Tommy says that the biggest change has been in the golf ball itself. Top players believe that the ball is improving at a rate of about a yard a year in distance carried, but the trajectory is also improving. Now the quality of golf courses is also much better and Tommy


describes some of them as ‘phenomenal’. He knows first hand how well some of the greens and fairways are looked after, because at Augusta in the US he was offered £5 for every weed he could find, and came away empty-handed.


All of this has made the game very different to the one familiar to Harry Vardon, who played with wooden clubs and a ball consisting of bits of elastic, although Tommy thinks that it’s not all progress. For example, he can’t understand why fit, young professional golfers need a buggy to get around a course.


These days Tommy admits to having to work hard getting around some courses which he says are more like assault courses than golf courses, but he can still show some youngsters a thing or two about playing the ancient game. Just three days before his 70th birthday he went around the Royal Jersey course in 66, and he still travels extensively and is very busy keeping up with charity work.


Just before he spoke to 20/20, his fortnightly schedule included playing in a charity Pro-Am for Peter Allis to help handicapped children, he walked around the south coast with his wife for three days on another charity project, then went up to Liverpool to help raise £20,000 for a cancer hospital. The following week he was involved in a charity event for Durrell in Jersey and then flew to the United States to help raise another $60,000 for cancer research. When he’s not attracting tens of


thousands of pounds for charities he’s collecting golf memorabilia with items from Harry Vardon’s time taking pride of place. Then there’s the writing, with another book on the way, which will include more than 90 stories featuring encounters Tommy has had with the world’s greatest golfers along with their golfing tips. He still keeps in touch with many of the golfing greats, and was at the recent funeral of Seve Ballesteros.


Then he’s also thinking of ways to bring back the highly successful Seniors Pro-Am tournament at La Moye, which was Jersey’s biggest sporting event. With the previous sponsor being forced to pull out, Tommy and his colleagues are now looking for £150,000 in prize money for the event which attracts TV coverage in more than two dozen countries.


‘That should be attractive to an international company because it’s a good programme, it advertises Jersey and golf still has a very good image,’ Tommy says.


Indeed Tommy is very proud of the fact that he is so involved with a sport that has such a good image. Golfers don’t shout at each other, or fight each other. They just play golf against each other, and the best player wins!


‘It’s a good scene for both the young and the old,’ Tommy says.


Going Out Page 83


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