Gregson is enjoying second lease of Tour life

Mar 4 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

MALCOLM GREGSON, at home on Merseyside, was packing his golf bags for the evening flight to Barbados to play in the first European Seniors Tour tournament of the new schedule.

It represents an early season chance to assess the opposition, gauge how far Gregson has recovered from an operation, his form and his ability to compete. You dont want to appear a Charlie, he smiles. This, of course, is impossible.

The opposition at Royal Westmoreland will indeed include defending champion Gordon J Brand and other big names, such as Ian Woosman, who will be on familiar territory with a home in Barbardos and now making his debut on the Seniors Tour.

But then Gregson was a six times winner on the European Tour, five times on the Seniors Tour. He has won £650,000 on the Seniors and now is in the line-up for the first date of the Seniors 2008 season.

The Seniors is expanding. With the extra sponsorship money available beyond Britain the first time venues this year include Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, the Azores and India.

For the players with the time, commitment and tee allocations to play most if not all of the events, the modern Seniors schedule does add up to a lot of travelling and while Gregson has been a great supporter of the Seniors the travelling was one of the reasons, he quit the European Tour years ago.

I was going backwards and forwards, going through terminal two at Heathrow every week and I had been doing it for 19 years, he says.

I felt I was in a plane every week and also I had another career to follow, in corporate golf.

He is from Leicester he lists Leicester City FC among his interests and his parents played golf and encouraged him in the sport. Now he lives at Formby with his wife Jackie and two boys Mark and Matthew, a member of the Lancashire Under-18 squad.

Both are golf club members and dad says: They would both like a career in professional golf like thousands of others.

During the 1960s and 1970s Gregson was one of the European Tours most successful players. His first win came in the 1964 Gor Ray tournament and three years later he won three times, topped the Order of Merit and represented Great Britain and Ireland in the Ryder Cup.

He earned £90,000 during 19 years on the European Tour.

You can earn that in one event now, he says.

He joined the Seniors Tour in 1994 and established himself as a regular. At that time there were 12 events with a total prize fund of £921,000. Last year there were 19 events with a prize fund of £5.7 million. The fund for this year is not yet known.

Gregsons wins include the Jersey Seniors Classic while his fifth title came in the Northumberland Seniors Classic in 2004, when he returned to using a set of clubs he has used for his previous four wins. He is also the youngest player to have returned a 62 in the Seniors Tour event when aged 62 in Switzerland. That was followed by a 63 two days later.

But around Christmas time in 2006 he had a hip replacement, which ended with some complications. He has a numb right leg and foot. He was out of the game for five months and last year he played only four events in the Seniors, including the British Seniors Open. He feels he has lost a lot of stamina.

He says the Seniors Tour has been a real boom for professional golfers as they get older.

Gregson explains: Before this started (in 1987 with two events) there would be the Seniors PGA championship and that was it. The professional golfer would have just retired into the sunset or he might have been able to go back to this club job. So this has been a second lease of life.

The Seniors Tour is well known for the relaxed atmosphere. Spectators enjoy seeing the stars, who in their younger days played in golfs greatest events and now still play competitive golf, yet often find the time to chat to the spectators.

Gregson, too, enjoys meeting players he knew and competed against years ago. But for all players, the prize money on offer is adding to the challenge to play well and win. To some extent the relaxed atmosphere is, perhaps, changing.

He says: The atmosphere at these tournaments is great and it is more relaxed than the European Tour. But it gets less relaxed as more money comes in. It was relaxed at the start but then it is easy to be relaxed when you are not playing for very much. Now you are more aware of the amounts of money you are playing for.

Also, while there are exemptions, many senior players do have to qualify to enter. The competition is tough, not just from ex-European Tour players but, he says, from other top regional players.

He says there is a greater depth of competition now. Nick Faldo played in the Seniors British Open last year. This year Sandy Lyle, Bernhard Langer and Gordon Brand Junior among others become eligible to join the Tour. So it makes it all the more tougher for those in the 65-years-old age bracket to compete and win.

But for Gregson, Barbados is something of a voyage of self-discovery about his game and his performances.

I am going out there to play in some decent weather, he says I am going to see what I can do, see if I have any game left after 18 months since the operation.

I am there to win money, really find out if I can still do it or indeed if I cant do.

Gregson admits if he did reach a time when he was shooting really high scores, then he would hang up his clubs. He would know the time for that had arrived.

He thinks that his short game may have suffered as a result of the lack of competitive action. He suspects he has lost some length. But he is interested in the challenge ahead.

He says: This is for peace of mind. I want to find out if I can still play something like, to find out about myself.