CAN you remember what you were doing 40 years ago this weekend? If you’ve got a memory like this correspondent, which leaks like the cistern on a torpedoed battleship, then the answer will no doubt be, “What was the bloomin’ question again?”
Those of you, on the other
hand, who can nonchalantly recall events of yore with the ease of someone leafing through the archives in the Mitchell Library
may already be reflecting on the inaugural Glasgow Classic, a European Tour event which took place at Haggs Castle around this June date in 1983.
With the Glasgow’s Miles Better promotional campaign already in full swing, it was time for some of the stars of European golf to get into the swing too. Haggs Castle, nestling in the leafy, tranquil sprawl of
Pollok Country Park, had staged
the Scottish PGA Championship
of 1976 but the Glasgow Classic was a step up.
There was a first prize on offer of £13,330, compared to £800 for the national PGA contest, and rapidly emerging powerhouses like Nick Faldo and eventual champion Bernhard Langer were part of a field alongside home favourites such as Sandy Lyle, Ken Brown, Sam Torrance, Bernard Gallacher and Brian Barnes.
As for incentives for the local punters coming through the gates? Well, the front page of the official programme lured all and sundry in with the chance to win a mink coat and a two-week holiday in Portugal. The idea of Doreen from Laurieston, wreathed in her fancy fur while parading and perspiring around the Penina resort in gallus defiance of soaring Algarve temperatures conjures up some deliciously bamboozling imagery.
Apart from Open Championships birling around Scotland, the home of the game had, by and large, been starved of top-level professional competition. The Scottish Open, for instance, was still in cold storage, having last been played in 1973. It wouldn’t emerge again until 1986 when the Glasgow Classic, which was rebranded the Glasgow Open for the 1984 and 1985 editions, morphed into the national Open.
In 1983, Haggs Castle provided the only stop north of the border on the European circuit. Over Hadrian’s wa’ in England, meanwhile, there were 11 tour events that season, including The Open at Royal Birkdale.
Suffice to say, the Glasgow Classic was as eagerly anticipated as the results of the prize draw for that mink coat being printed in the Evening Times.
“Glasgow goes on trial this week,” wrote the well-kent golf scribbler of the time, Alister Nicol. “The tour needs a good, permanent Scottish event and wants one. The Glasgow Classic could be the first of a long line. Let’s hope it is.”
The Dear Green Place would provide, well, green shoots for the growth of high-end tournament golf in the game’s cradle. “The potential in Glasgow is enormous,” said the then European Tour secretary, Ken Schofield, in the build-up. “The Glasgow Classic will be studied very closely. If this one takes off, we’ll be back in 1984.”
The tour would be back. In that first staging of 1983, meanwhile, it was the aforementioned Langer who conquered as the young German won the sixth of what would end up being 42 European Tour titles.
The runner-up, Vicente Fernandez, along with Faldo and Brown who shared third, were the only others to finish under-par. Haggs Castle proved to be a sturdy golfing fortification.
The Herald’s golf correspondent of the day, Raymond Jacobs, described Langer’s measured, effective display on the final day as an exercise in “stolid patience.” Funnily enough, that’s how this correspondent describes the attributes demonstrated by my small yet loyal readership. While Langer’s closing round, according to Raymond’s keen eye, “could not honestly be described as gripping, its effectiveness could not, however, be denied.”
Langer’s approach has stood the test of time. Here in 2023, playing that same style of diligent, deliberate golf, he continues to win at the age of 65 and chalked up his 45th victory on the Champions Tour earlier this season.
Forty years ago, Langer was the king of the Castle. In 1984, when the event became the Glasgow Open, Brown won by a whopping 11 shots while Howard Clark was the victor of the final edition in 1985 when he pipped Lyle in a play-off. Lyle had just been crowned Open champion a couple of weeks earlier at St George’s and opted to play at Haggs Castle instead of the US PGA Championship.
Glasgow, it seems, was miles better.
