St Andrews Old Course guide retires after 19 years

However, earlier this month, after almost 20 years giving tours around the Old Course, tour guide and life-long town resident Alastair Matheson hung up his microphone.

In 2001, after retiring as a cabinet maker and giving up golf, Alastair, still passionate about the game, applied to be a walking tour guide for the Links Trust.

While he was given a script by the trust which covered the history of the course, it was Alastair’s stories which brought colour to the tours.

The 91-year-old is a born and bred St Andrews man.

A former member of the St Andrews and New golf clubs, Alastair has tales going back to the 1940s, following the end of World War II.

He was there when Sam Snead, the American golf great, won the Open and changed how the game was played.

“He came in by rail and it was reported at the time that he looked out of the window and said it was a ‘cow pasture’,” said Alastair. “I don’t know if it’s true or not.

“Also, when he won here, he was the first man I saw take an iron club and take turf. The game, when I started, you hit the ball cleanly.

“The Americans made clubs which had weight in the sole of the club, which allowed them to dig down. You couldn’t do that with a normal club because it only had a blade. I learned all my golf hitting the ball cleanly. It changed the way of playing.

“All the club makers in the town started to put weights in the sole of the iron club. When he took turf, I thought he’d gone too deep. I’d never seen that before.”

Alastair said his favourite part of the job was meeting new people, especially golf fans. While it meant he had to keep up-to-date with what was happening in the game, the tourists were often keen to hear his stories. Among his favourites was the time Bob Hope came to town in the ‘50s.

“The word got round the town that he was playing,” Alastair said.

“This was when he was at the height of his career. A huge crowd followed him round. He told funny stories and was cracking jokes. On the 18th hole he sliced his tee shot and it went right through the skylight of the new golf club. Someone must’ve told him what had happened to his ball. He walked into the club and asked for his ball back. That’s just the kind of man he was.”