Winter Golf has arrived!

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Well known Blairgowrie Senior now an exibit in Perth Museum !

 Perth Museum & Art Gallery

Alan McKirdy’s Two Pound Talk yesterday afternoon attracted around 40 visitors to hear about the changing landscape of Perthshire. It’s always a pleasure to chat to visitors who come in for the lunchtime talks, and we were delighted to discover that some of the objects on display in the museum held very personal memories for two families in the audience.

Ian and Muriel McPherson were leaving the lecture theatre after the talk, when they stopped to admire some of the photographs on the wall. Ian was surprised to see his 11-year-old self in one of them, captured while playing cricket on the North Inch in 1953. The scene, which was posed for the photographer, shows Ian (or Shorty as he was known then) along with his friends as they enjoyed a game in the scorching sun.

Unlike most of the lads, Ian has kept his shirt on and wife Muriel explained that his auburn hair meant he wouldn’t have risked exposing his pale skin to sunburn! Although the image is in black and white, Ian recognised himself by his hairstyle.

One of the most interesting facts revealed in the conversation with Ian (also known as T.I. McPherson), was that he went on to play cricket for Perthshire and Scotland between 1978 and 1982. In the photograph he is seen to the right of the wicket, in long socks with his hands ready to catch the ball as the leg slip fielder, but his preferred position was as a slow left bowler.

This image is one of several old photographs chosen to feature in our upcoming 2016 calendar, which will be on sale before Christmas.

Ian McPherson with a photo taken on the North Inch in 1953.

What a talent !

15 years ago this week golf changed forever.

In 2000 a golf ball was created that revolutionised - and, in some eyes - ruined the sport

By James Corrigan, Golf Correspondent

The ancient game has been getting in a lather about the 15th anniversary of a ball.
Except the Pro V1 is not any ball. Depending on your viewpoint it is the piece of equipment which overhauled/ruined golf. What seemed merely evolutionary can now be deemed revolutionary.
At this week’s corresponding PGA Tour event 15 years ago, 47 players in the 156-man field walked to the first tee armed with the ball officially launched by Titleist. It appeared appropriate that they were playing in Las Vegas, although they all knew this was no gamble, no plus-foured crapshoot. Testing had shown them what was possible and so this, billed the “the largest pluralistic shift of equipment at one event in golf history” was to prove it.
Six of the top 10 used the Pro V1. “Our Eureka moment,” Bill Morgan, Titleist’s vice president said. For Billy Andrade and countless others to follow, it was a miracle encapsulated in a perfect sphere, granting an extra 20 yards while also allowing the same touch around the green.
In basic terms, the Pro VI was formed of a solid core (taken from the distance balls), surrounded by a surlyn “veneer” casing (taken from the performance balls). In financial terms it became the most successful golf product of all time.
The effect was remarkable. A few months later, Phil Mickelson warned rivals not using the Pro VI they were “operating under a distinct disadvantage” and as other ball-makers followed suit so the craze transformed into the norm. At the 2000 Masters, 59 of the 95 players employed a wound ball. At the 2001 Masters, only four did. By the end of that season, not a single player using a wound ball won on any of the major tours. The curators had another item for their museums.
The buzz rose in volume as rapidly as the driving distance stats. In 2000, one player on the PGA Tour averaged more than 300 yards; 10 years later there were 21 in this category. In 2000, 60 players averaged less than 270 yards; 10 years later there was only one.
It was to be a decade in which legendary layouts, in their pure state, looked too short and were thus “tricked up” and the fury duly erupted as the governing bodies sat back and did nothing, claiming there were other factors, not least the players being better conditioned.
Jack Nicklaus, for one, was not having it. “When will they wake up?” he said. “The golf ball is way out of bounds. It is making the great golf courses obsolete.”
Gary Player remains just as vocal.The Black Knight blames the ball for most of the modern game’s perceived ills - for boring, eye-straining holes with thick rough and daft greens; for the demise of the shot-maker; for five-hour rounds which put off so many. He wonders where golf can go next, where the tee-boxes can go next.
“I’ve been joking for 15 years that Augusta can’t get any longer that they will have to go out into the streets,” Player said. “Well guess what? They’re now buying those streets.”
Augusta National is having to expand into surrounding streets
The green-jackets have the greenback to do so; the overwhelming majority of clubs are not so fortunate. And so the cabbage will thicken, the putting surfaces become more and more like marble and this once wonderfully multi-faceted sport become less and less interesting.

For those aging hill-walkers....

Unveiling of a commemorative plaque for Sir Hugh Munro at The Gateway to the Glens Museum in Kerriemuir on Friday 16th October.  David Stone, Robin Campbell & Graeme Hunter from the Scottish Mountaineering Club.  Sir Hugh was credited with recording a list / table of 283 peaks above 3,000 feet in Scotland, now known as Munro Bagging.  Some keen golfers at Blairgowrie have been known to stray off the fairways to bag a few Munros!

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Sad Announcement

HENDRY (Thomson). Peacefully, at Blairgowrie Cottage Hospital, on Saturday, October 10, 2015, Anne (nee Pinkerton), beloved wife of Len Hendry and the late Allan Thomson, much loved mum of Shona, dear mother-in-law of Alan, dearly loved sister of Frederick (Wodonga, Australia), dearest aunt and dear friend to all the family. Funeral service in Perth Crematorium on Monday, October 19, at 3 p.m., to which all friends are invited. Family flowers only, please, but donations to Blairgowrie Cottage Hospital G. P. Unit may be given at the Crematorium. No black ties, please, bright clothing preferred.     

Senior's Discounts

2015 Seniors Dinner

www.golfhistorian.co.uk/oldtom.html


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Oct Monthly Medal Winners - Wednesday 30th September

Seniors' Group members Hunter & Dow winners 

of the October Monthly Medal  Div. 2 & 3,

overlooked by Auld Tom Morris