I was sorting through some old boxes in the loft this week and found my well-thumbed copy of Bob Starkey's Hacking to Victory: the club player's guide to golf. I first met Bob Starkey in the summer of 1986. I see him now - pink Argyle cheque Pringle jumper, grey Farah hopsacks, white stuburt's with spats. He took the 7 iron I was holding from my hands without speaking. Demonstrated a text book Vardon grip and then went into the pro-shop for a Marathon. He is a golfing legend. His keen insights and carefully weighted advice have benefitted golfers the length and breadth of Yorkshire for twenty years. Coming on the back of his 1993 Barnsley GC Autumn Medal victory and his overwhelming win in the 1995 Tankersley GC Skoda Scramble, Starkey put together a playing manual with a focused approach designed to appeal to the average club golfer. No ball shaping techniques, no weight distribution tips, no smart bollocks about timing. Bob got down to brass tacks and showed the typical 28 handicapper how to bludgeon their way through 18 holes. This was muscle golf for the Alpha Male. A blue print for hackers everywhere. Strategy is thrown away in favour of brute heroism, Hail Mary drives and unfeasible approach shots against impossible odds. The putting green's tricky breaking play is tamed with what Barnsley's finest calls 'The Kamikaze Stroke'. Starkey declares: 'Imagine the ball is a Japanese WWII Mitsubishi Zero fighter aeroplane. You're strapped into the cockpit and bearing down on the USS Bunker Hill. There's no time for sophistication or complicated techniques. No opportunity to consider the niceties of microclimates and wind direction as the flack bursts all around you. The objective is simple - you're wanting to clart into the ammo store at Mach 1. So line up direct for the conning tower and CLOUT IT!' This is golf as we all play it, fine tuned until hacking becomes an art form.
Undaunted by an expanding waistband, mild alcoholism, three broken marriages and the disintegration of his short game Bob can still be seen giving tips to youngsters and anyone else who'll listen on several courses along the South and West Yorkshire border.
Here we see Bob offer words of wisdom on playing from a tricky lie after a typically wayward 'Howitzer' drive...
