DAVE MUSGROVE 1943-2017

THEY were two of the greatest champions to come out of European golf but there were obvious differences between the sturdy Scot, Sandy Lyle, and that swashbuckling Spaniard, Seve Ballesteros.

Dave Musgrove, the English caddie who heaved the bags for both, had his own way of distinguishing them. “The biggest difference between Seve and Sandy came after a bad shot,” he once recalled. “With Sandy, you didn’t have to duck.”

When news filtered through yesterday that Musgrove had passed away, it didn’t take long for the tributes to come in. The alliance between Musgrove and Lyle was hugely profitable.

In 1985, the duo were together when Lyle conquered St George’s to win the Open. In 1988, Musgrove was again calling the shots as Lyle became the first Briton to win the Masters at Augusta.

In between, the Scot lifted The Players’ Championship title at Sawgrass. “We wrote history together,” said Lyle on his social media site yesterday. It was a simple, heart-felt reflection which underlined this barn-storming period of prosperity on the global stage.

Musgrove had been slinging sets of clubs over his shoulder since the age of 12 at the Hollinwell club in his native Nottinghamshire.

He enjoyed his first taste of an Open Championship at Royal Troon in 1962. When he teamed up with Lyle for a second time after 11 years apart in the 2001 championship, Musgrove had racked up 40 consecutive appearances at golf’s most cherished major. Before forging the dazzling double-act with Lyle, Musgrove’s first major moment came at Royal Lytham in 1979 when he steered the magical Seve to Open Championship victory.

At times, of course, it must have been like trying to harness a bucking bronco with a pitching wedge as the mercurial Ballesteros plotted his own inimitable, adventurous path to glory.

“I got so fed up with him missing fairway after fairway that at one point I said to him ‘why don’t you try closing your eyes and hitting it?’,” Musgrove said in a wry observation of the off-piste nature of Ballesteros’s gung-ho approach.

Working with the volatile Seve was never dull. “I used to get fired every other week with Seve,” he reflected. “In between those sackings, I used to quit. It was a regular thing. In the end, he said ‘you’ll never work for me again’. To which I said, ‘what is wrong with that?’”

The canny Lyle was something of a different character and the initial nineyear partnership would become Musgrove’s most enduring. “Sandy was, and is, the easiest guy in the world to caddie for,” he said.

After almost a decade with Lyle, Musgrove enjoyed one last major hurrah in 1998 when he helped Lee Janzen to US Open success. Musgrove is one of only two British caddies to have worked for three different major champions.

Dave Renwick, the Scotsman who died last February, is the other.

The golfing gods have some good men to give them a yardage.