Sandy Lyle - golf ambassador for Brunei
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I EARNED a creditable ‘C’ in Geography at A-level in the days when anything better than a ‘D’ rendered you liable to be dubbed a swat, but I must confess I was barely aware of Brunei until this week when I received an invitation to visit the Brunei stand at the World Travel Market, in London this week.
The pull of free food and drink, although tempting, wasn’t the main attraction, it was the opportunity to meet one of my a golfing heroes,Sandy Lyle - the second double-major winner I'd met in a month, having previously advised Golfmagic visitors of my encounter with Retief Goosen in Malaysia.
I was granted a ten-minute audience with the man I saw win the claret jug at Sandwich in 1985 and rather than ask him about the Brunei Senior Masters that he was there to promote or the bunker shot that clinched his green jacket at Augusta, I tackled the quasi-Scot on the controversial topic of holidays.
It proved surprisingly fertile ground to explore and I can now exclusively reveal that his first ever holiday was somewhat astonishly, his honeymoon to South Africa, after marriage to his first wife.
Because his father Alex was busy giving golf lessons seven days a week at Hawkstone Park, where he was the PGA professional, apparently there was never time for the family to take a holiday. However, Sandy revealed that occasionally his dad managed to jet off to Bermuda for a few weeks in mid-winter.
Sandy’s number one course is, unsurprisingly, Augusta National where he won in 1988 and has competed every year since without real distinction (best finish 21st in 1992). But, he told me, he’s hoping one day to go back to his favourite holiday destination, New Zealand, with his second wife Yolande.
He added that he never takes his golf clubs on holiday but if he ever did sign up for a golf holiday, Ian Woosnam and Mark James would be his preferred travelling companions.
No doubt they could also, if they haven't already, give him tips on how to become a Ryder Cup captain - something that, as yet, has eluded him.
Clive Agran is a renowned golf travel writer and a 15-handicap member at Dale Hill Hotel and Golf club in East Sussex/
