HUGGAN’S ALLEY: JOHH HUGGAN
WE all have our favourite golfers. As an impressionable youngster I was drawn to Lee Trevino. His combination of constant chatter and consummate shot making was irresistible. Later, as a supposedly impartial journalist, I was one of the many millions who could never get enough of watching the way Seve Ballesteros played golf.
But in the period between adolescence and adulthood I had another favourite. During a generally undistinguished “career” as a low-handicap amateur of barely discernible talent (the legendary Gerald Micklem once greeted me with the following: “Hello John, still playing like a prat?”) I had the honour and pleasure of playing both with and against Ian Hutcheon.
Scottish Amateur champion in both Match Play and Stroke Play disciplines, four-times a Walker Cup player (his victims and opponents included the likes of Jerry Pate, Hal Sutton, Corey Pavin and Gary Hallberg) and, perhaps most impressively, winner of the individual section of the Eisenhower Trophy (aka the World Amateur Team Championship) at Penina in 1976. Ian is now 75 years old and plays off a handicap of plus-one. He has been scratch or better since 1960.
“Ian Hutcheon was a truly great player,” confirms two-time British Amateur champion Peter McEvoy. “After the 1977 Walker Cup we went to the US Amateur. I played practice rounds with Ian who right then was probably playing more golf than he had ever done before. And he was brilliant, a fantastic player.”
That sort of tribute is impressive enough, but others have achieved as much over the years. What made Hutcheon so special was the way he played and, more to the point, struck the ball. His shots had a power and trajectory all of their own, the noise at impact instantly recognisable.
Long ago, he and I played a practice round before the 1981 European Amateur Team Championship at St. Andrews. Unusually, the Old Course was playing downwind going out and I, much to my glee, was driving the ball at least 20 yards past my older companion. I should have known better. When we turned into the wind coming home, the Hutcheon drives were suddenly ten-yards past the Huggan efforts. All to do with quality of strike – or lack of it – of course.
Anyway, I recently had occasion to visit the great man in the clubhouse at his beloved Monifieth. He still looks pretty much the same, having held onto a full head of hair – damn him – and, as ever, had some interesting observations to make on the game he has played so gracefully and so well for so long.
“I don’t enjoy playing as much with modern equipment,” he said. “But I couldn’t compete without metalwoods. With the old woods, you lose 30-40 yards into a wind if you mis-hit the shot. Now, you maybe lose a wee bit of direction but hardly any distance. Technology has taken a lot of skill out of the game. Plus, the modern ball goes straight most of the time. There’s no way that would happen with the old balls and clubs.
“As a result, I’ve lost a bit of my edge over guys who don’t hit the ball that well, especially off the tee. I get out-hit a lot these days. It’s amazing how far guys with poor swings can now hit the ball with metal-headed drivers.”
At this point it is reasonable to ask why such an obviously gifted individual never turned professional. The answer is simple: timing.
“I didn’t start playing until I was 14,” explains Hutcheon. “I went to college and qualified as an electrical engineer and didn’t have a lot of time for golf. It was only when I finished my apprenticeship that I played more. I was in my mid-20s when I started competing in national events.
“I finished playing seriously after the 1981 Walker Cup, when I was promoted to be a director of the company. But I was coming to an end anyway. I was 39. So I could have gone on. But I had too many responsibilities. I was asked to come back and play for Scotland again in the mid-80s but I’d had enough. I’d rather pull out before the end instead of someone telling me I am done.”
There was never any chance of that, of course. And he has no regrets.
“I would probably turn professional if I came along today,” he admits. “But I made the right decisions at the right times. There was little or no money in it back then. And there was no coaching, which is maybe no bad thing. So many young players are over-coached now.”
I left with my sometimes failing memory jogged. The slow, slightly upright backswing. The distinctive ‘whoosh’ at impact. And the low, penetrating flight. A special player. And still my favourite.
WHAT MADE HUTCHEON SO SPECIAL WAS THE WAY HE STRUCK THE BALL ... HIS SHOTS HAD A POWER AND TRAJECTORY ALL OF THEIR OWN