Champion golfer to be honoured

Parkview Golf Club is making plans to honour champion golfer and former member Bobby Locke at a five-day golf festival in November, and invites residents of the suburbs around it to join the celebrations.

“Obviously, golfers of all ages are welcome to enter,” said club director Jerry Fraser. “But the people of the suburbs around are welcome to watch some of the action and enjoy our refreshments.”

The final day, November 9, is likely to be a particular drawcard – it will feature almost 100 of the country’s top young amateurs in a 36-hole championship.

The event, beginning on 5 November, honours the late Arthur D’Arcy Locke, whose four British Open Championships between 1949 and 1957 and numerous other wins in Europe and the United States made him undeniably the second most accomplished golfer South Africa has produced.

“Many people argue that although he won fewer golf majors than Gary Player, he was generally the country’s best yet exponent of the sport,” said Fraser.

Locke won four opens in a span of eight years and dominated when he played the PGA tour, earning him the distinction as the first great non-British, non-American golfer.

In 1950, he and Sam Snead played a series of 16 challenge matches. Locke won 12 of them and lost only two. The year he decided to try the US Tour, he won five of the 13 tournaments he entered.

In his three years competing on American soil, he won 15 times, one of them coming by a record 16 shots. It apparently led to bad blood among the Americans he was beating.

In 1949, after winning his first open, Locke remained in Britain to play a series of exhibitions and autumn events.

This led to the PGA of America barring him because he had committed to play in selected tournaments on the United States tour. Although the ban was lifted, Locke never again felt welcome and played most of his golf in Europe. He won the open again in 1950, 1952 and in 1957, to break Peter Thomson’s streak of three Open Championships in a row. In South Africa, Locke was nearly unbeatable. In one 32-month span, he played in 59 tournaments, won 11, and finished second 10 times, third eight times and fourth five times. In all, Locke won more than 80 tournaments around the world, amazing his opponents equally with his slinging-iron hook shots and his wizardry on the greens.

Veteran Parkview members remember Locke as having a bizarre personality and an unorthodox style. After World War II, he dressed almost exclusively in grey flannel knickers, white buckskin shoes, and linen dress shirts with ties and white Hogan caps. He played the ukulele and had a reputation for being one of the game’s great partiers. He never lost his temper or expressed annoyance and was described as cool, shrewd and imperturbable. The American pros nicknamed him ‘Muffin Face’ because of his changeless expression.

In 1959, he was involved in a bad roadside accident. He was never the same golfer again. In 1987, at the age of 69, he died in Johannesburg.

Details for the festival:

November 5 – Sponsors’ Day

November 6 – Captain’s Day

November 7 – Six-ball Commando

November 8 – Bobby Locke Memorial (Club members only)

November 9 – Bobby Locke Invitational