It’s time I Locke it up and write a book about SA’s wizard of the greens

NOW that I have reached an age where I am told I’m too old to be employed in a full-time job, I have decided to write a book.

In between mowing the lawn, playing a bit more golf with my fellow pensioners and trying to upgrade my non-existent cooking skills, I do have more time on my hands. And so the book.

Will it ever get published, and even if it does will anyone buy it? I guess that’s the dilemma of any would-be author.

In any event, the book is to be about South Africa’s own wizard of the greens Bobby Locke, who many believe was the greatest putter the game has ever seen, and who died in 1987 aged 69.

Years later, as The Star’s golf writer at the time, I was left with a huge pile of press cuttings and photographs that Bobby’s parents, I presume, had carefully kept ever since he was a young lad in the 1920s.

The cuttings are a treasure trove of information about Bobby’s life and his many successes around the world, which included four Open Championship wins and cleaning up in the US in the late 1940s, and I’ve occasionally delved into them to write the odd story.

But now I think it’s time to put all that information into a book.

Here’s just one snippet I gleaned from the many press cuttings, an article in The Star nearly 90 years ago.

Bobby’s parents lived in Germiston and as a young boy he would wile away hours of his time with a mashie and a few balls on a practice ground used by the town’s rugby players.

He used to start playing his shots in front of the posts and lofting the ball over the crossbar in much the same way as a rugby player practises place-kicking. Then he would gradually move over towards the touchline and from the narrowing angle, continue to place his shots between the posts.

He was just a kid amusing himself, but he was also building a rhythmical swing, and becoming deadly accurate – skills that would serve him well throughout his glittering career.

At just 17, in 1935, Bobby wrote himself into this country’s golfing record books when he won the South African Amateur and then the SA Open straight afterwards at Parkview.

The youngster was staying during the two tournaments with HB Keartland, The Star’s sports editor and golf correspondent who was worried that the young fellow might be anxious and would struggle to sleep ahead of the Amateur final against the formidable Frank Agg of Durban.

So Keartland got a prescription for a mild sedative which he intended giving Locke that evening. But Bobby would have none of it, went to bed early and slept soundly.

Keartland, though, stayed up late in case he heard the boy tossing and turning and failing to get any rest.

He later wrote about this in The Star: “Moving about the house late at night I woke up my practical wife who remarked somewhat tartly, I’m afraid, ‘anybody would think you were playing in the final instead of Bobby. You had better take the sleeping draught yourself ’. After that I crept into bed.”

Next morning in the 36-hole final Bobby showed no signs of being nervous and sealed victory on the second playoff hole, knocking in putts from all over the place.

He was back on the tee at Parkview the very next day for the start of the 72-hole two-day test that was the SA Open. He had begun his journey into stardom, and for the next 20 years he would “Locke it up on the greens” all over the world.

Locke was born in 1917 so this year is a significant one as he would’ve turned 100. Maybe, then, I’ll write a little more about him in the coming months.