Figurehead gives 50 years to sport
May 28 2009 by Tim Taylor, The Journal
THESE days, a highly talented youngster who makes a major impact on golf can expect generous back-up to assist their development.
Expert coaches. The best equipment. An army of volunteer blazer boys on the committee doing all the admin for the club and county tournaments.
Then there is the passport round the world if you hold down a place for England and qualify for financial support from the English Golf Union, which equates to a small salary.
If you have a chance of making it as a Tour pro, there could be an early sighting on the radar. For example, Kenneth Ferrie, the only North East golfer to win twice on the European Tour, took the Northumberland Under-21 title as a 14-year-old.
Back in 1962, though, support was minimal by comparison and not every club encouraged youngsters. At Hexham, that was the year a young wannabe entrepreneur called Chris Robinson formed the junior section.
A three-handicap golfer, he was to become, effectively, the father of golf as we now know it in the North East.
Two years later, Robinson was the driving force behind the formation of the Northumberland Junior Golfing Association and was to go on to a remarkable career as a golf writer, golf centre manager, public relations officer, broadcaster and publisher.
Now 65, Robinson, the son-in-law of the late former Journal sports editor, John Pargeter, has completed 50 years in golf and is in semi-retirement and concentrating on playing the game socially.
Arguably, his most notable achievement was in forming a company called Golf and Sports Promotions with, among others, the noted sports enthusiast Roy Caller. That company provided the finance for Doug McClelland to become the first North East golfer both to go on the European Tour and to win a Tour event.
McClelland, who won the Dutch Open in 1973, is now the managing director and part-owner of the Silvermere club in Cobham, Surrey, where there are 14 teaching professionals and 58 staff in the busiest pro’s shop in Europe.
The lad from the South Shields club is doing alright for himself. Sometimes he moonlights by coaching Prince Andrew at Windsor Castle and, occasionally, he has a chat with the Queen as she walks her corgis. McClelland is in a racehorse-owning syndicate and yesterday, shortly before watching the two-year-old colt, Brick Red, a descendant of Nijinsky, work out on Andrew Balding’s gallops at Kingsclere, he paid tribute to Robinson.
