A Round with a Legend: Peter Thomson

Like me, Thomson hadn’t brought his own clubs and was borrowing a set that belonged to Brown’s son. On inspecting the driver – a new, jumbo-headed, titanium-enriched affair – he chuckles to himself and quips: “Not like they were in my time. I can never get over how light they make equipment nowadays.”
Not that that seemed to matter in the slightest. Starting off on the par-4 3rd (we decided to skip the first two holes because of concerns over light) Thomson rips a drive down the right-centre of the fairway, about 220-yards from the tee. Any doubts I might have had over his current abilities were immediately extinguished. While his swing is a touch jerkier than the sweet, uncomplicated action he used to capture titles from the 50s to the 80s with, make no mistake: the man can still play.
It’s on the greens, however, where Thomson really excels. Gripping the putter incredibly lightly, his stroke appears every bit as fluid as it was in his heyday. Every putt rolls pure and every putt challenges the hole. But, agonizingly, too many catch the lip and fail to drop. Looking heavenward after a 15-footer for a half horseshoes out, it’s obvious that Thomson’s competitive juices still flow. This might just be a midweek knockaround but his determination to win hasn’t left him. Nevertheless, after four holes we’re three down to the locals who have played very solidly indeed. I have contributed zilch and it’s starting to get a little embarrassing.
To draw his attention away from my lacklustre game, I get Thomson talking about his favourite subject: links golf.
“Golf, like sailing, needs wind,” says the man who, in 1965, bested a field which included Nicklaus, Palmer and Player to lift the Claret Jug for a record fifth time. (Tom Watson would later match the feat). “What I don’t really like about the courses the professionals play today is that they’re all the same. You can play one week in America and the next in China and the conditions are the same. It’s the same type of grass and they play the same way - too soft. There’s no challenge in that. Links courses, if prepared properly, are firm and bare and wind is normally a factor. It’s the purest form of the game there is.”