The AGW was delighted ahead of the 2020 BMW PGA Championshiip to honour European Tour Chief Referees Andy McFee and John Paramor on the occasion of their retirement and long friendship with the Association.
Firstly, the AGW is thankful to Iain Carter for hosting the presentation and with the AGW again very fortunate to have the worth of Iain’s input.
John joined the European Tour in 1976 and Andy in 1983 but in retiring no-one knows how many tournaments either has been present in a referee capacity.
As Iain, a fomer AGW Chairman and also long-time BBC Five Live golf correspondent, pointed out the answer to that question is ‘countless’ as to how many events around the world John and Andy has officiaed first as a ‘referee’ and then ‘senior referee’ and ending their very distinguished careers as ‘Chief Referees’ of the European Tour.
Your attention is particularly drawn in viewing the video below to John’s tale in his thank you speech singling out the occasion when our very dear and missed friend Dai Davies, and Dai’s colleagues, took JP aside on the occasion of being in charge of his first tournament at The Belfry and referred to the then ‘rookie’ Tour referee as a ‘complete bloody idiot’ .. absolutely brilliant!
Apologies those viewing the video in having to put up with Hoppy, John Whitbread and Briony from the Tour in the video – they had their video buttons ‘open’ hence being on the screen during the presentation and as much as I’ve tried, I just cannot edit them out.
Here is a YouTube link to the video presentation:
As well, Alistair Tait wrote a superb tribute to Andy and John and here is the link to his article:
https://www.alistairtaitgolf.com/post/european-tour-loses-vast-local-knowledge
Bernie McGuire, Secretary
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