John Imlay

I was lucky to meet John Imlay. It was a special day two years ago in North Berwick just the two of us chatting. He sadly passed away last week and I thought it would be appropriate to post an excerpt from the article I wrote about him in Golf Illustrated. He said it sounded like his mother had written it. With the respect I held for him, I took this as a compliment. He will be missed.

Building Bridges

John Imlay is on a mission. As well as championing the Bobby Jones name, he is also passionate about building bridges over some of Scotland’s great links courses.

(AN EXCERPT)

Like all great men, Imlay has an eye on enjoying his retirement especially as he has recently recovered from two knee replacement operations and is looking forward to walking between shots towards the end of the year. His other focus is securing his legacy, and, perhaps as importantly, that of another legend.

During the 1970s, a former law partner of Bobby Jones FM ‘Buster’ Bird devised a plan to honour his business partner and asked Imlay to help develop the idea. “He said Bob would never want a statue or anything that would glorify him, so instead Buster wanted to create a scholarship between St Andrews University and Emory University in Atlanta where Bob got his law degree. He wanted me to promote it but didn’t want all the usual clowns and balloons - he wanted dignity.”

That was the beginning of the Robert T Jones Memorial Trust Scholarship which was established five years after the great man’s death in 1971. It now supports four students from each university on an annual reciprocal placement in order to “perpetuate his memory in the hearts and minds of young people by creating a permanent memorial to his sense of values and character”. Golf skills, or knowledge, are not part of the criteria.

Before Buster died, he told his business partner Jean Branch and Imlay that the Jones flame would dim with his passing and he wanted Branch, and then Imlay, to keep the flame alive. That responsibility has now passed to Imlay who is stoking the fire through the scholarship and other initiatives including the non-profit-making organisation Friends of Bobby Jones. His latest endeavour is to create an annual celebratory dinner to commemorate Jones’ birthday on March 17 and launch the new golfing season.

Despite his custodial role, Imlay only met Jones once but it was a meeting that would have a profound affect on the young salesman. During a courtroom hearing involving a corporate dispute, Imlay reacted rashly to provocation from an opposing lawyer. “He ran in saying I was a no-good, lazy salesman slob so I took a swing at him – I was a bit of a hothead back then and this was Southern justice,” says Imlay.

The judge called a three-hour recess to calm things down and Imlay’s lawyer, a certain Jean Branch, took his client to see his senior partner – Bobby T Jones. “He was all knarled up and didn’t weigh any more than 110 pounds, but he still had his mind,” Imlay recalls. “He said until he was 19, his temper always won. Until he was able to control his temper he never had a victory in a major tournament, but once he controlled it, he started to win.”

The 30-minute conversation changed Imlay’s life. “’John, I want you to go in there and nice them to death’,” he says describing the advice he received from the Dixie Whizkid. “I always remembered that quote - it changed my life. I went into the courtroom and niced them to death and won the case. It worked, and I have used it ever since.”

It was a seminal moment and one that would define Imlay’s approach to life and business. It served him well. He amassed a considerable fortune built up on a reputation for astute marketing and his down-to-earth approach. More importantly, he has come out the other end with the distinction of being universally liked and respected. From former captains at Muirfield to the caddies of North Berwick, Imlay has the ability to put people at ease.

With guidance from some of golf’s great names, it seems Imlay was destined to build bridges wherever he went.

Higher power

Here's an excerpt from an ode I wrote about golf tees. It was first published in Golf Illustrated. Hope you enjoy it.

LOVE FOR AN ELEVATOR

From its earliest beginnings, the humble golf tee has been often overlooked and taken for granted. Well, no more

Golf is a game built on confidence. With it, your swing becomes effortless, your thoughts pure and the outcome of each shot preordained. Nirvana found. Without it, golf becomes a tortuous test of self-resilience that can be as much fun as a poke in the eye.

Confidence is key. It can mean the difference between a golfing high and calamitous low. It drives golf club and ball sales around the world and, wonderfully, at the start of every hole, the gods of golf offer us a precious taste of it in the form of the humble tee peg.

It may seem like a small thing, but a ball perched on top of a tee is both iconic and reassuring. Discussing the value of the common tee in a 1965 issue of Sports Illustrated, Jack Nicklaus asked: “When you can have a perfect lie, why give yourself a mediocre one? This is a question I ask… when I see golfers, both good ones and bad, hitting a tee shot on a par-3 hole without teeing up the ball.”

Although clearly not favoured by the world’s greatest player, failing to use a tee is certainly within the confines of the game. In fact according to the R&A’s eleventh Rule of Golf, a player is permitted to hit a tee shot from the ground (which includes irregularities in the surface), from sand or another natural substance. This ruling harks back to the days when golfers teed up the ball using a pile of sand or fashioned mounds of earth as impromptu perches. Indeed, some players still follow this approach; Laura Davies being one.

If you choose to follow the Golden Bear’s advice and tee it up, it would be advisable to choose a conforming tee that is no more than four inches in height, doesn’t indicate the line of play and doesn’t influence the movement of the ball or generally assist you in any way. These stipulations are important because if a player were to use such a tee he could find himself being unceremoniously disqualified and duly marched from the course. A conforming tee may be a godsend, but using one that is not could have severe consequences. You have been warned.

Teaching pros will tell you that using a tee properly will raise the ball above the top of the grass thereby cutting down your chances of hitting a fat shot. More crucially it can prevent blades of grass being trapped between the ball and the clubface enabling the club to attack the ball cleanly producing maximum backspin on the greens. All this results in more accuracy, greater consistency and, ultimately, lower scores. Who would have thought a couple of inches of plastic or wood could do so much?

With so much going for them, you might imagine the first tees were snapped up by golf fans eager to get their hands on the latest game-improvement technology. Apparently not. When the American dentist William Lowell patented the Reddy Tee in 1921 (so named because the tee was painted red), it had been 22 years since the first tee patent application had been lodged; coincidentally also by an American dentist called George F Grant. Unfortunately the intervening years had not enamoured golfers to the idea who refused to play with the pegs despite them being handed out for free. It was only when Walter Hagen received $1,500 from Lowell for endorsing his Reddy Tee that the idea sparked the public’s imagination and the idea caught on.

 

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE

Being the first golf course ever has a certain ring to it. It’s a title with added pizzazz and status. So significance is it, you would think it would be easy pick a winner. But it ain’t. Please find below an excerpt from my Golf Illustrated article on Musselburgh. Enjoy.

Some birthdays pass by in a blink of an eye while others stay with you forever. Reg Dean celebrated his big day by going into the record books as the undisputed oldest man in Britain. He celebrated his birthday from his bed safe in the knowledge he had reached the top.

At 110, he had every right to take it easy while the national papers and news channels pounced at the opportunity to celebrate his landmark age. It is, after all, human nature to mark the achievements of others, especially when those achievements are unsurpassed. Reg celebrated his record in style. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for the World’s oldest golf course.

Until recently this title resided in the ancient, free-draining turf of the Old Course at Musselburgh, which is located just six miles east of Edinburgh. The unassuming links, which is encircled snugly by a horse-racing track, was home to some of the greats of the game. Legends like Wille Park Sr and Jr, Mungo Park, David Brown and Bob Ferguson all made a name for themselves here. It is believed the game-transforming Guttie ball was developed in the club-making shops that surrounded the course and, as significantly, six Open Championships were decided at Musselburgh which eventually got its full complement of nine holes in 1870.

During a golden era when the tentative green shoots of the modern game were first emerging, Musselburgh was, without question, at the centre of it all.

To find out more about this story, visit www.golfillustrated.co.uk

Worth a read

A relatively 'new' title on the market is the relaunched Golf Illustrated, which deals with golf in a slightly different way to other titles. Considered, informed and detailed, the magazine places a lot of emphasis on photography and story telling (rather than providing advice on how to cure your slice).

As you might have guessed, I write and take photographs for the magazine, but don't let that put you off - http://www.golfillustrated.co.uk/