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Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Golf commentator whose voice became synonymous with the sport, and a former professional golfer with 20 major tournament wins and eight Ryder Cup appearances.
On the island
Eight records
Starting off with well did you ever from High Society, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, because High Society I thought was a magical film. I see it regularly once or twice a year. The children have it on video. And I think Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby together are marvellous. And the words are so clever.
Stéphane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin
Well, cheating a bit, again, uh a duo, Stephan Grippelli and Yehudi Menuin, two uh very different violinists of the highest standard, no longer in the first flush of youth, but those nimble fingers dancing over the strings, cold porters night and day.
Au fond du temple saint (from The Pearl Fishers)
Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill
In the depths of the temple from Bize is the pearlfishers, Jossip Björling and and Robert Merrill, two superb voices, and I think I could lay back on my beach and listen to these two all day.
The Folks Who Live on the Hill
Well now, during those ten very happy years in Leeds, we had a house, Blackmoor Farm, overlooking Moor Alletton Golf Club. It was on a hill, and Peggy Lee's one of my favorite, favorite, favorite lady singers, and so obviously the folks who live on the hill.
Well, I've had a love affair with people who really can't sing over the years but make nice noises, like Edmundo Ross and people like that. And one of the most extraordinary records ever to me was Richard Harris's MacArthur Park. Love it.
Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy
Those marvellous singers Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, The Indian Love Corps.
Well now, this is one of my my favorites because I've always liked singers that can really belt out a good tune. And there have been a few of those over the years, many, many, many. But a homegrown product from Scotland, Lulu, who's the best sort of stomp around the stage I know, and her record of shout.
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1Favourite
Well now imagine the beach, me a bit down in the dumps, and I've made my uh sort of cardboard rifle and I'm marching up and down the beach feeling a bit sorry for myself near Christmas or whatever. And so what better than Alger's Pomp and Circumstance March number one from the Royal Albert Hall BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:56Given your pedigree, was there any doubt that you were going to be anything other than a golfer?
No, I don't think so. But it's very hard to sensibly put down how your life has developed, because people don't believe you. In the sort of pattern of things, I was never going to do anything else except be a golf professional. Even if I hadn't been a very good player, it had been ordained that my father, being a very famous player and a nice man, he had a good job. He'd always had good jobs. … And I was just going to follow on in his footsteps.
Presenter asks
4:33Do you find [golf] easy?
Yes, I think looking back. I found Hitting a golf ball Simple. And so I didn't practice enough. It never became a worry to me. … I wasn't a dedicated player. I was an inspirational player, I suppose, on occasions, particularly Ryder Cup matches later on.
Presenter asks
8:10Was there a problem in being in your father's shadow as a player?
I don't think so. Looking back, one has been quoted or things have been written about the problems of having a a famous father or Well known, father. It opened many doors. Of course you always get people or or got people who came up and said, You'll never be as good as your father or they'd say, uh, you know, if I'd done particularly well in something, you get people saying, Isn't it amazing how Percy keeps going on? And if I'd done poorly, that young Peter, I knew he'd never be any damn good at all. So you had to get over those two sort of two crosses, but on on the whole it opened many doors and of course life was was far less sophisticated then.
The keepsakes
The book
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
Winston Churchill
I think I'd like to have the best possible collection or or book about uh Churchill's history of the English speaking, or something like that that I could Fan through and read under the old palm tree would do me. I might learn a bit of something.
The luxury
I once was in Florida where they had these uh sailb things uh with wheels that you could go up and down the beach on. You know what that fil set of wheels and a thing. I'd love to sort of go on a hard, wash, sandy beach and sit on this thing with the old wind behind and whoosh, straight up the beach.
Presenter asks
12:55What was the worst moment that you can recall in your playing career?
It was in uh Augusta in Georgia in nineteen sixty six, round about there. I was playing in the Masters with a great chum of mine, Gene Littler, and I I'd done, I think, a seventy one or seventy two in the first round. I was out in thirty five, got a four at the difficult tenths, and I was on The eleventh, just decided the eleventh green in two, chipped it up about eight feet away and got over this putt very fast green, and suddenly. The ball had gone about twelve feet past, and I don't sort of remember ever drawing the thing back. And then I thought, that's very strange. And I went back and then I Something else happened and I found myself four feet short. And then I was beginning to sweat a bit now, and then the next thing I knew, I'd sort of tattooed the ball. I went, ba ba ba ba ba b like a machine gun. I I hid it, stubbed the ground, and then the putter kept catching the ball up and went d da da da da da like that. And I ended up fifteen feet past again. … I finished with eighty six … The first time it ever happened to me that I had no control, the mind just disappeared.
Presenter asks
15:28What was the change that occurred in your life that took you from being a playing golfer to commentating?
Well believe it or not, my first B B C appearance. was in nineteen sixty one at Royal Birkdale, near Southport. And I was asked to, you know, when I finished playing, would I like to pop up into the commentary box? … And I did that for two or three years and before I got paid, and then I think I got ten guineas. … And that was the way, again, things were going to be. … And then suddenly, about 1974, pro-celebrity golf was introduced. And uh uh and sadly, Henry Longhurst's uh health began to fail, and although he kept going for two or three years, He and I started to work more and more together and we became very close friends and I almost sort of became a sort of son to him, I think, in a way … and it just like topsy grew and grew.
Presenter asks
19:28You give the impression on television of being this very easy going, amiable, affable chap. Are you really like that?
Most of the time I think I am, but I'm I'm a controlled schizophrenic, I think, really. … I have a vitriolic temper when round, an evil tongue. Viperish tongue. hard, cruel tongue at times and um I try to keep it under control. … But underneath it all I have a flaming temper. I I had a couple of bad bouts of showing my temper when I was in the RF regiment. And damn near killed somebody once over over nothing. And ever since then my physical strength over the years has has rather frightened me and made me quite a decent citizen.
“I'm all right on my own, sort of driving cars and I don't mind being in hotels on my own, but I'm not one of those people that that that goes down into the restaurant and teams up with someone and talks to them over dinner or goes into the bar and has a late night conversation. I think I'd get a bit lonely and a bit fed up and uh I talk to myself now, at the end of whatever period on the island I might be having very serious conversations with myself.”
“The worst thing that ever happened in our family life, Jackie and I, was we lost two children actually. I lost a baby when it was before it was about eight months lost one. And we had a little daughter, Victoria, who lived nine when she died, very severely mentally handicapped. … It taught me certainly to be much more tolerant”
“I think we started off very much as players and gentlemen, and that wasn't a bad thing. People knew their place, which is a term you're not supposed to use now. But I think knowing one's place is a great buffer in life. And if you know you're good at something, but know your place, it makes life a lot simpler in many ways.”