Adrian
How did you come to know Maurice and his family ?
Niall
When we built the Players Club, we had no history so the idea was to 'ponce someone else's history' I had a few Open programmes so i filled the gaps back to 1975 the first one I went too, then someone offered me a 69 signed by Mr Jacklin so I had to have that...on and on I have ended up back to 1927 with a few holes, Amateur Championship too and half I have signed on the front page, they are in our clubhouse, rooms, corridors complete with signed photo's of the winners of the majors!
I had a 1976 Regional Q Open programme so contacted Maurice to sign it, the front cover. I became friends with Gene really he used to go surfing down in Newquay so kinda passed by, he called in on his way once, we did talk about how great a film would be and he wanted to know if I had any contacts to make it. We also talked about a book...the book got made.
It was hard to get Maurice out of the house as he was suffering with a bad chest courtesy of about 40 fags a day for 60 years, he said he'd think about coming down for a game but he never did so I never met him, I don't think he played golf in his last 10 years and I reckon he died about 10 years ago, Gene use to say he was just "waiting for god" probably more a reference to being on his own after his wife died.
I remember being at Open Quailfiers as well when he had played, think I caddied at South Herts once and he had played, but was never at the same venue. One of our regional pro's played in that 76 Q ( Bill Howard I think his name is) he said his score was nearer 200 than 121. Both partners had their entry fee returned. Maurice sneaked into another four as far as i remember.