Words by Darragh Garrahy.

Barclay Brown will tee it up for GB&I in the Walker Cup at St. Andrews in early September, aged twenty two. In the 2021 iteration at Seminole, his trademark bucket hat had an R&A logo on it in Juno Beach – he wore a camo bucket en-route to a 68 at The Open on Thursday at St. Andrews last year). The atypical headwear is where the non-traditional motif stops for Brown – he is a classic ballstriker, good enough to qualify for this year’s US Open at George Thomas’ LACC (Thomas also designed the course at Stanford where Brown studies Economics).

Barclay Brown in camouflage at The Open at St. Andrews, 2022

The last time another Barclay entered the Walker Cup fray was in 1997 – Barclay Howard. Unlike Barclay Brown, he did not attend Stanford; his education growing up outside Glasgow was more practical than theoretical and he definitely didn’t wear a bucket hat.

I occasionally watch Justin Leonard’s speech after his Open win in 1997 at Royal Troon.  It is routinely cited as one of the best winners speeches ever. Listening to John Huggan’s podcast interview with former Open Press Officer David Begg, it was news to me that Begg had supplied Leonard with a note on who to thank, just before his speech. Still the sincere praise given by the Texan gentleman delighted the Scottish crowds, in particular when he referenced the first low amateur winner from Scotland in decades, Barclay Howard from nearby Renfrewshire, an arriviste of sorts at 44 years old.

Barclay Howard: Note the modicum of lead tape – elite striker for sure.

Some great characters in the Walker Cup have been immortalised like Dr. David Marsh who hit that brilliant 3-iron into the road hole at St Andrews in 1971 against Bill Hyndman to more or less seal a GB & I win; Gary Wolstenholme beating Tiger Woods in singles in 1995 at Royal Porthcawl (often forgotten they rematched the next day with Tiger winning), Justin Rose becoming the youngest GB & I player in history (since usurped twice), in 1997 at Quaker Ridge, and many more.

Barclay Howard played in that 1997 Walker Cup after his Silver Medal win at Troon. He also played in the 1995 edition. Barclay hadn’t been in contention for a place in the 1973 Walker Cup when another nineteen year old Howard Clark played-  his life was moving in a different direction. In all truth he didn’t cross the line between goodness and greatness as a teenage golfer but part of that was circumstance. Barclay had his first child aged 18, the year after leaving school in 1972. He moved into work in Clydesdale Bank straight from school. The family battled to get by and Barclay wound up moving to Rolls Royce in 1973, where he worked on the production line. There was no January jaunt to the President’s Putter in Rye (the ‘jolliest of all’ as Darwin said of the week long matchplay festival of golf for OxBridge golfers) and no Sunningdale Foursomes in March to freshen up the game before the Brabazon and Lytham trophies.  He was driving an ice-cream van in the evenings and weekends to fund what was now a two child household by 1976.

Barclay was cut from a different cloth than those who could easily afford the time and money to travel for golf however, and his golfing brilliance would have easily caught selectors eyes on bigger stages if not for the young family and work disbarring him from entering. He played his golf at Cochrane Castle Golf Club, 25 miles north of Royal Troon where he shone so brightly over that week in July 1997.

Barclay’s personal life deteriorated, culminating in a divorce in 1978. He married for a second time in 1981 and this came to an end in 1985, but he had picked up the habit of heavy drinking in the late 70’s and this had spiralled. He was barred for a period of time from his beloved golf club, and dropped from international teams from 1984 onwards. The spur he needed had come, and he rededicated himself to golf after gaining sobriety in the early 90s. He had found his ideal complement at this stage in his wife Tish, giving him another daughter, Laura-Jane, in 1992.

Being effusive in our praise for those who have entered the arena and failed or succeeded is understandable. Sometimes the what-ifs for legacy sake are just as interesting; Arthur Croome of Fowler, Abercrombie, Simpson and Croome golf architects couldn’t make the famed* 1903 OCGS tour of America (*well, famed to you, if you’re reading a CJ piece and have made it this far- you don’t need explaining on that seminal trip) due to ill health and Horace Hutchinson and Bernard Darwin missed the same trip owing to business commitments. John Low and Charles Alison travelled in a team of 11- a full strength line-up ( more of a murderer’s row than the 2007 USA Walker Cup team?) that beggars belief in terms of contribution to the world of golf.

Barclay Howard’s what-ifs won’t get aired. He couldn’t stoke the competitive flames for many a year and it was not to do with gentlemen’s business commitments. He was engaged in keeping himself and family afloat. The toll it took personally, manifesting in his alcoholism, and what it took to overcome that, are worthy of respectful reflection. Similarly we might remember how on his one and only one trip to the US Amateur in 1997, when he had safely qualified for matchplay, realising he had violated the USGA one ball rule by switching from a Titleist Professional to a Tour Balata on his 36^th and last hole of stroke qualifying, he promptly disqualified himself.

His Walker Cup playing record from 1995 and 1997 is not one for the record books. Regardless of his W/L/D record in a few weeks, Barclay Brown will likely play his last Walker Cup at twenty two years old at The Old Course. We wish him the same fortune Barclay Howard had in his two wins at the St. Andrews Links Trophy in 1994 and 1996. Brown of course, had a successful outing at last summer’s Open at St. Andrews.

Howard died in 2008, having battled Leukaemia since feeling ill shortly after the 1997 Walker Cup- he was fighting for his life by Christmas 1997 in hospital. In his book The Walker Cup 1922-1999 Gordon Simmonds quotes Howard as summing up the 1995 victory at Porthcawl with ‘it just doesn’t get any better than this’. It was a prophetic statement with what was to come with his health problems that followed, but also beautifully nailed on- it was the peak of his golf life, the jolliest week of all for him.

At the committal of his body, the Eye of the Tiger by Survivor played out in the crematorium. The winds of life blew him in a different direction to most good teenage golfers and the end was cruel,  but the middle act lent him a richness and fullness of life not seen by many in the common hours.

This piece does not intend to capture every turn of Barclay’s life. He published a biography in 2001 with Jonathan Russell called ‘Out of the Rough-Booze, Birdies and Driving Ambition’ and a comprehensive overview of his golfing life can be found in an excellent piece by Mark Eley at his site, The Golf Bible.

Rather I wanted to take the platform of the upcoming Walker Cup to highlight a man whose plight to participation likely won’t be replicated again.