Richard was a good friend, and a very important advocate for GCA magazine, especially in our early years. He was prone to fits of enthusiasm on particular subjects, and would always want to talk about his current ‘thing’, even if ostensibly the conversation was about something else. For example, he had something of a bee in his bonnet about Herb Kohler — he was involved in the deal by which Kohler bought the Dukes course in St Andrews, and felt he didn’t get his due — so he tried very hard to block Kohler’s purchase of Hamilton Hall. This didn’t work out, but it did lead to the creation of the St Andrews Golf Festival; typically Richard that something positive would emerge.
I went to a number of his legendary Open open houses. The best that I can remember was at Sandwich in 2011, when I recall getting steaming drunk (I was staying on my father-in-law's boat, moored at the town quay, so had only a five minute stagger back to my digs) on some rather delicious Brunello di Montalcino from the golf estate at Castiglion del Bosco, the place developed by Massimo Ferragamo.
My most vivid memory of him is the day we played together at Morfontaine, my first visit to that great course. There was some kind of club meeting going on, so we started from the tenth (there were three groups waiting on the first, a huge jam by Morfontaine standards). When we got back to the first, we found there was a very elderly man there in a golf cart, swishing at the daisies with his driver. We introduced ourselves, me silently giving thanks to my excellent school French teacher, and the gentleman did too. I said his name was familiar and he said ‘Ah, perhaps you know the Avenue de Segur in Paris. That was named for my great-great-great (I forget how many greats) grandfather, Philippe Henri de Segur, Marechal de France’. Morfontaine is that kind of place, full of people whose families you’d have thought were eliminated in 1793. He had lived in London for a time and been a member of Sunningdale, as had Richard; he asked us to play with him, so the two of them spent the nine holes sharing memories.
I shall miss my friend.