Bob Charles to play St Clair Legends

By Neville Idour

Sir Bob Charles will make a welcome surprise comeback at the St Clair Legends Pro-Am at St Clair Golf Club in Dunedin on Wednesday, February 8.

The $12,500 event is part of the New Zealand PGA and Australian PGA Legends Series five-tournament swing in the South Island. The other four events at Hanmer (February 4), Rangiora (February 7), North Otago (February 9) and Tokorahi (February 11) all have $12,500 prizemoney. Charles will only play the St Clair event.

For Charles, St Clair holds special memories having first played in Dunedin there at the 1953 New Zealand

Open as a teenager. Eighteen years later he won the then prestigious St Clair Charity Classic in 1971 which attracted world class fields for several years. So to return to St Clair 70 years after his first experience there is pretty special. In fact it is 10 years since his last competitive outing in a seniors’ event in Switzerland.

We asked Charles if there was any particular reason for his decision to play at St Clair.

“Patrick Moore, the professional at St Clair, invited me to play so I accepted for two main reasons. It would be an opportunity to promote my book (Sir Bob Charles -The Biography) and also promote the game of golf for seniors and juniors.”

Charles will run a putting clinic for juniors and Moore is excited at the prospect of hosting him. Charles, of course, has always waxed enthusiastically about the game of golf and did again.

“Golf is a game for life. As long as you have an arm you can play golf. I played with world war hero, the legless Douglas Bader at Sunningdale in the UK some years ago and that was some experience. I have also played with one armed and blind golfers.”

Charles, 86, still plays to a high standard from the white tees or the equivalent. He plays regularly and can shoot par or close to it.

As he said: “Dad played until he was 90 years old. I want to play until I am 100.”