In Pursuit of Perfection

Bio: From Scotland to Sentosa

“I was a very late starter to the game. When I was 15 I had a handicap of 12. I wasn’t playing much but when I started taking lessons at Gullane with Jimmy Hume I thought ‘I’d love to do that job – be a club pro.’ I left school at 16 and Jimmy took me on. For the first three years I worked in the back shop and cleaned clubs. When I moved to the pro shop I thought I had arrived. I was selling clubs and selling Mars bars! There was a Hong Kong connection. Allan Murray (President of the Hong Kong Club and Shek O Country Club) would come home to Gullane to visit and he’d pay me 10 pounds to play a round with him. If he won he’d pay me 20 pounds. Years later, when I arrived in Hong Kong to work at Clearwater Bay, Allan was kind enough to take me to lunch to welcome me. I met so many people that day who were key contacts for me.
My break came when I went to visit a friend in Florida. Whilst there, I heard that a new Jack Nicklaus course was opening as part of the Hyatt Regency Resort in the Cayman Islands and I was determined to get a job there. I was offered an interview but they wouldn’t pay for the flight. I had no money and was too embarrassed to call my mum and dad for money, so I pawned my golf clubs! Luckily I got the job and at the interview I asked them to sub me $300 to get them back. I was the assistant pro, then the head pro and then I became the director of golf. I stayed for seven years.
When I was at the Hyatt, the general manager offered me the chance to go through the hotel management training programme. On the first day, I went to his office in a shirt and tie and was expecting to be put in a front office position. He told me to go to the uniform room and pick out a stewarding outfit. I ended up cleaning pots and pans for the next four months.
I went through the gamut of hotel operational activities. I turned down beds, worked in food and beverage, and even spent time in engineering. That was where I learnt about desalination systems, which came in very useful when I worked at Dubai Creek and, later, at Clearwater Bay, where we installed the first open seawater reverse osmosis irrigation plant in Asia.
Going through the hotel management programme was the best bit of career change I ever did. When the Dubai government contacted the European Tour to ask for a club pro who was also trained in hotel management, they turned to me. It helped me receive the PGA 5-Star Professional of the Year Award.
Clearwater Bay was my biggest achievement. It wasn’t all plain sailing but it was transformational. Over a year before I left, I was asked to move to Sentosa, but I was determined to see the project through. A week after the course reopened I moved here. I loved what we had in Hong Kong—it was an incredible piece of property.”