Lyle and Woosnam’s journey from shared roots to Masters glory
BY MATT COOPER
In the late 1960s, the chief reporter of the Shropshire Star (a local newspaper in a little-known English county on the Welsh border) began a new venture on the back, rather than the front, pages.
Bob Davies didn’t expect much from his new golf column, other than to share with readers his joy of the sport through local news and gossip.
It didn’t quite work out like that, however. In fact, it worked out much, much better than Davies could ever have hoped or dreamed of.
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Because while it was true that the column took him to the county championship and to monthly medals, it also sent him way beyond the county boundary, from the green fields of England to the green jackets of Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia.
That column might be the best idea the Shropshire Star’s chief reporter ever had.
In early 1958, around 10 years before Davies had his brainwave, two boys were born in Shropshire a mere 21 days and 15 miles apart, both to expat fathers.
Alexander Walter Barr Lyle was the son of a Scotsman who was Hawkstone Park Golf Club’s professional and young “Sandy” took to the game soon after he was strong enough to stand upright. He had no playground but preferred the golf course anyway and aged 3 he could clip a ball 80 yards in his Wellington boots.
Ian Harold Woosnam was the son of a Welsh farmer, an ex-boxer who took the family to Llanymynech Golf Club when Ian was 7. Looking around from the car park, the youngster recognised the sheep that grazed in all directions, but not the way the fields had been shaped into fairways and greens.