Peter Corrigan – the golf writer’s favourite

By Martin Johnson

He won’t mind me saying this, but as a golfer, he was really pretty hopeless. And that was on one of his better days. As a chronicler of the sport, by contrast, he never wrote off a handicap of anything less than scratch, and as an all-round good egg, he was off a minimum of plus six.

Peter Corrigan, who left a gaping hole in the field of sports journalism when he died at the weekend aged 80, didn’t just write about golf, but a whole host of sports, and whichever one he commented upon, he did so with that rare combination of precision, clarity, and, above all, rheumy-eyed wit.

Everything he wrote was a must read, but it was as a columnist that he truly excelled. For many years, when The Observer was my choice of ­Sunday newspaper, I’d chuck all the various sections on to the hall table until I’d located the sports bit, then it was back to bed with a cup of tea and straight to the Corrigan column. It guaranteed a lovely, cuddly start to the day, and in the later stages of his career, his golf ­column in The Independent – ­appropriately named ‘The Hacker’ – was the best bit in the paper.

It was through golf that we first became chums, with the annual contest known as the Home Internationals. Half a dozen golf hacks each from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland got together for three days of competition, as much at the bar as on the golf course, and Corrigan – a Penarth man, and a member at Glamorganshire and Royal Porthcawl golf clubs – was the captain of Wales.

They were always short of players and when he discovered that I was occasionally known to knock it round in under 100, was a fair operator at the bar (albeit not these days) and had a mother born in the Welsh valley town of Risca, I was a shoo-in for the team; a team that had never won the thing, and who’s idea of glory was when they finished joint last, as opposed to last on their own.

Then one year, with the match at Celtic Manor, Wales won it. Corrigan, as he always did in the foursomes format, paired himself with the second worst player in the side – his often quoted mantra of “that way we might get a point from the other two games” was the kind of strategic genius that made him the best Ryder Cup captain

Europe never had. And on this occasion he was out in the last match on the final day, and as we waited in the clubhouse for them to finish, it transpired that a winning point from the Corrigan game would mean Wales taking the trophy for the first time.

Which meant, of course, that we had no chance at all, ­especially when one of our non-playing supporters reported back that Corrigan and Glover (Tim of The Independent) had picked up and conceded the opening hole without even ­progressing beyond the ladies’ tee.

However, that year our final opponents – England – had turned up short of several regulars, and when Corrigan holed the winning putt on the final green – probably for a triple bogey – the ­celebrations went on so long that the planned early afternoon ­departure was never a prospect.

It was Corrigan who ­persuaded Celtic Manor that this was the finest sporting moment that Wales had seen since Tommy Farr almost won the World Heavyweight Boxing title against Joe Louis, and having ­secured us complimentary suites for the night, Corrigan led the party through the afternoon and into the small hours.

Winning was ­secondary to Wales’ reputation for being last to bed, and, while ­Ireland gave us a good contest, he would ­remain at the bar until breakfast was served if there was any danger of a ­Welshman not being last man standing. Or wobbling, more like.

I once partnered him in the match played on his home course, at Porthcawl, and we were duly four down after eight to an especially strong Scottish pairing. Playing the ninth, ­Corrigan shanked my drive into a gorse bush, and I hacked it into an impossible position for three, with the opposition on the green and not far from the hole in two.

Corrigan then thinned his ­approach into the bank of a bunker (he later claimed a  miraculous Mickelson-like ­parachute shot) which flipped up on to the green, and I holed from 40 feet for a five net four. The Scots were suitably shaken, three-putting to lose the hole and eventually the match.

It was during the Home ­Internationals that Corrigan’s gift as a speaker and raconteur made the evening gatherings such a joy. Even in those years when Wales reverted to type and came nowhere, he was still ­cajoled (although he didn’t ­really need much persuading) to stand up and deliver an always entertaining account of the day’s topping, duffing, and hacking.

He passed his considerable writing gifts on to his son, Jamie, who is golf correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, and he was very much a member of the old school, when it was all fountain pens, typewriters, and ­delivering your story down a crackly phone line to a copytaker who had no interest in sport, and no real inkling that they were typing a work of art.

Peter was every golf writer’s favourite golf writer, but most of all – and this is how we’ll ­remember him –  he was also their favourite man.