Alan Booth.
(Photo taken in 2009 and thank you to Matt Adams, Group Editor, Hertz Advertiser & Cambs Times – February, 2021)

Tribute by Alistair Tait (Golf Week) – January 20, 2012 

Alan Booth was laid to rest in a small, simple ceremony two days ago (18th January, 2012). The world of golf has lost another valuable asset that probably won’t be replaced.

Many of you reading this wouldn’t have heard of Alan Booth. He was 96 when he died a few weeks ago.

Booth wasn’t a high-profile member of the golf-writing fraternity, but he played an important part in recording the game. Alan spent his working life writing for the Herts Advertiser in St. Albans, England, providing a service no one seems to want these days.

Alan edited the Herts Advertiser for a spell. More importantly for us, he took a keen interest in amateur golf. He was a one-time member of Verulam Golf Club, home of the Ryder Cup.

The county of Hertfordshire, England has spawned some pretty good golfers over the years. One-time Verulam golf professional Abe Mitchell might be the best player never to have won a major. He’s the figure atop the Ryder Cup, courtesy of his influence on Sam Ryder. Ryder was captain of Verulam and took lessons from Mitchell.

Booth knew the Ryder family well, and wrote about them during his life. He also was the first to write about a young English amateur from nearby Welwyn Garden City by the name of Nick Faldo – now Sir Nick Faldo. Booth wrote a lot of column inches on Faldo, both as an amateur and a professional. He also wrote considerably on five-time Ryder Cup player Ken Brown.

Faldo couldn’t attend the funeral but sent his condolences, while Brown was there with other members of the Association of Golf Writers, Hertfordshire County Golf officials, Verulam members and friends to see Booth get a good send-off.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Alan over the years, and he taught me much. Even in his late years, his mind was still sharp. We dined together at Valhalla during the 2008 Ryder Cup, when Alan told me of covering Faldo when he was just a boy. Alan wasn’t at Valhalla in a working capacity. He was there to complete a journey. He’d watched Faldo start out in golf, and felt watching him captain the 2008 Ryder Cup team would complete that long circle.

Booth spent many years working at the Open Championship as a press officer. He was responsible for interviews. Not with a tape recorder, but with impeccable shorthand. I would rate Alan’s shorthand against any stenographer’s. He was pinpoint accurate. Not many journalists today know shorthand. I would be happy if mine were even a patch on Alan’s.

I last saw Alan at the 2009 Open Championship, when Tom Watson lost that Turnberry heartache. Alan parked himself in the front row for Watson’s press conference. He dispelled with today’s practice of waiting for the press officer to acknowledge raised hands. Alan fired off three or four questions at Watson without pause. Watson didn’t mind. Alan was entitled – he’d had covered every one of Watson’s five Open victories stretching back to his first at Carnoustie in 1975, when media centers were far smaller affairs.

Alan worked as a radio operator in the Royal Air Force during World War II. I guess when you can master Morse code, then shorthand is a bit of breeze.

Sixth Herts Ad editor William Tyson (left) congratulates his successor, Alan Booth (right), with the Gibbs family overlooking them. (Photo – Thank you to Matt Adams, Group Editor Hertz Advertiser & Cambs Times – taken mid-1960s)

Alan will be missed for many reasons, but my lament is that he’s another regional golf journalist to depart this world. He belonged to an age when men like him knew their beats, and covered them assiduously. Besides Faldo and Brown, Alan covered every golfer of note who came through the Hertfordshire system.

I read the Herts Advertiser when I first moved to St. Albans in 1989, and remember Alan’s missives. He didn’t miss anything. I still see the Herts Advertiser, but its golf coverage seems almost non-existent. Like many small-town newspapers, it operates with a skeleton staff and doesn’t have the resources to cover what it once did.

Maybe that’s not surprising. After all, golf coverage in British national newspapers has been going downhill for years, so it’s not surprising that small regional newspapers are struggling.

I miss those days when writers like Alan Booth knew their beats and covered them well. He’s part of a vanishing breed, and that’s to be lamented because men like him won’t be replaced.

Albert Alan Booth 1915-2011, RIP old friend.

R & A Website – Former LGU Press Officer Alan Booth dies at 97

Alan Booth, a former Ladies Golf Union Press Officer and member of the Association of Golf Writers since 1977, died this week (December 2011) at the age of 96 in Watford General Hospital.

Former newspaper editor and respected golf writer Alan Booth, who worked at The Open Championship for more than 30 years, has died at the age of 96. Booth, who was at St Andrews for The Open just last year, used his celebrated shorthand skills to cover player interviews in the Media Centre and became a well-known figure to both press and R and A staff. 

He started his eight-decade career in journalism as a messenger with the Daily Mail in Manchester, eventually rising to become editor of the Herts Advertiser until his retirement in the mid-1970s. 

However, a passion for golf led him to embark on a second career as a freelance golf writer and he got to know many of the greats including Sir Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros as he travelled the world following the game. He continued to cover The Open into his 90s and even drove the 1,000 mile round trip himself to Turnberry for the 2009 Open Championship. 

David Birtill, freelance writer and former Golf Correspondent at the Manchester Evening News, said: “The last time I was in Alan Booth’s company was during the Open Championship at St Andrews in 2010. “At 95, no-one was likely to dispute his exalted position as not only the most senior journalist in the Media Centre but probably the oldest in history to cover the Open Championship! “Alan confided in me that he would not be at Royal St George’s this year – and he was true to his word. ‘It’s nothing to do with my age,’ he stressed. ‘That’s just a number but I guess I know it’s time to stop’.”

Booth, who lived for many years in St Albans with his late wife Isobel, was living in Garston at the time of his death from pneumonia at Watford General Hospital. A date for the funeral is still to be arranged.

Tribute from fellow golf writer & AGW Member Paul Trow:

“Ninety-six is a good innings. Alan was the perfect gentleman, always looked so much younger than his age, had the best shorthand note in the business, and was a friend of Sam Ryder. RIP old friend”.

Former Herts Advertiser editor dies Published: 7:00 PM December 18, 2011    Updated: 2:45 PM November 1, 2020

FORMER Herts Advertiser editor and respected golf writer Alan Booth has died at the age of 97.

Alan, who was born in Manchester and lived for many years in Westminster Court, St Albans, with his late wife Isabel, edited the Herts Advertiser from the early 1960s until the mid 1970s when it was a 97-page broadsheet.

He was living in Garston at the time of his death from pneumonia at Watford General Hospital.

Golf was his great passion and he knew a lot of the great players including Nick Faldo and Seve Ballesteros as a result of travelling worldwide as a writer on the sport. When at home he was a member of Verulam Golf Club.

Alan Booth was a sergeant instructor on wireless for a Lancaster Squadron at Coningsby during the war.

Paying tribute to him, his great friend and former Herts Advertiser chief photographer, Tony Gregory, said: “He was one of the finest editors I have ever worked with. He gave me the most wonderful job I have ever had. I had known him for over 50 years and he was a very nice gentle man.”

A date for the funeral still has to be arranged.

ONE OF ALAN’S LAST STORIES – Herts Advertiser 28th September, 2010

Champion Ben

personAlan BoothPublished: 8:03 AM September 28, 2010    Updated: 2:43 PM November 1, 2020

HERTS Boys champion Ben Smith stormed home with six birdies in the second round to win the English Junior Champion of Champions tournament at Woodhall Spa.

HERTS Boys champion Ben Smith stormed home with six birdies in the second round to win the English Junior Champion of Champions tournament at Woodhall Spa.

Smith, 17, from Sandy Lodge, opened with 75 to be four strokes off the lead, but clinched his first national title with birdies at the final two holes for a four under par 142 to win by one stroke from Durham’s James Simpson (Whickham), North of England schools champion.

Ronnie Madeville, one of Hertfordshire’s popular club professionals, has died in Watford General Hospital. aged 90.

He was club pro at West Herts from 1946 to 1985, before retiring, and the club marked his 90th birthday in February with a celebration dinner in his honour, a tribute which was also paid by the Chorleywood club, for whom he was honorary professional.

WONDERFUL ARTICLE BY ALAN IN THE HERTS ADVERTISER – Following Nick Faldo’s Knighthood & revealing he once caddied for a then unknown Faldo in 1974.

Herts golfing legend Faldo knighted

Published: 9:13 AM June 18, 2009    Updated: 2:40 PM November 1, 2020

By Alan Booth NICK FALDO became only the second professional golfer in the game s history to be awarded a knighthood when he headed the list of sportsmen and women named in the Queen s Birthday Honours at the weekend. So the award, which follows his MBE.

By Alan Booth

NICK FALDO became only the second professional golfer in the game’s history to be awarded a knighthood when he headed the list of sportsmen and women named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours at the weekend.

So the award, which follows an MBE in 1998, is a fitting recognition of his golfing achievements, first in amateur and then professional events, which have seen him become Britain’s all-time most successful golfer.

And it is a proud moment for Hertfordshire golf, for it was it was at club and county

level that his game progressed to selection for English and British national events, and later as tournament professional to achieve the distinction of being World No. 1.

It is singular that at the time his knighthood was announced the Hertfordshire Amateur Championship was under way at Ashridge Golf Club. For it was there in 1975 that Nick Faldo’s career really took off after winning the county title. And it was at Ashridge where the first tournament player to be knighted was club professional for eight years from 1937, the late Sir Henry Cotton.

I first watched Nicholas Faldo play in the Porters Park Junior Open in 1974 (and pulled his golf trolley for a few holes!} and became the first to write about him in the Herts Advertiser. He finished runner-up, as he had done a few days earlier at Moor Park, and downcast he said “When am I going to win?”

He provided the answer the next year, first winning the Herts Boys, then in an outstanding display at Ashridge he beat defending champion Bob Durrant.for the Hertfordshire Championship. He went on to win the English Amateur Championship, the British Youths, South African Stroke Play, Berkshire Trophy, the Champion of Champions, Royston Junior, and Welwyn Garden City club championship in the same year.

The Walker Cup team having previously been chosen, he turned professional, his first tour event being the 1976 French Open at Le Touquet where he completed all four rounds. Then he gained his first big success, winning the first of his four European PGA titles at Royal Birkdale in 1978.

I saw him play in France, in his US Masters debut in 1979, then in two of his three Masters wins, all three of his Open Championship titles, and many of his other triumphs, two of which stand out for me.

His second Open title in 1990 was a dream come true – walking down the 18th fairway at St Andrews to the cheers of the packed grandstands, knowing that he had won the coveted title at the home of golf. The other stunning victory came in 1996 at Augusta when he started the final day six strokes behind Greg Norman, shot a brilliant 67 and won his third Green Jacket by five strokes.

So, his Knighthood is a deserved honour for the former all-round sporting youngster from Welwyn Garden City, a county swimmer and cyclist, who at the age of 14, decided golf was to be his game when on television he saw Jack Nicklaus winning the 1972 US Masters against the colourful backdrop of Augusta National. Supported by his parents, George and Joyce, he became a junior member of Welwyn Garden City Golf club, and completely dedicated to the game, he was rarely away from the practice ground, being coached by club professional the late Ian Connelly

That dedication has led to his six major titles, 29 European titles, European Golfer of the year and US PGA’s Player of the Year, as well as being the most successful Ryder Cup player in appearances and performances, and finally Ryder Cup captain. There is also his support for young players with the setting up of coaching centres and the Faldo Series tournaments. Not forgetting he tied for first place in the US Open, losing the 18 holes playoff to American Curtis Strange in 1988.

Nick Faldo then led the tributes to Alan’s passing

Tribute by Nick Faldo to the passing of Alan Booth. Article provided with much thanks by Matt Adams, Group Editor (Herts Advertisr and Cambs Times – February, 2021

Tribute – Bernie McGuire

I had the great pleasure in working with Alan for a number of years as a member of the official media team working at the Open Championship and I wanted to take this opportunity as Secretary of the AGW, and in posting this very belated tribute (22nd February, 2021) to recall one memorable tale in working with Alan and under Stewart MacDougall, who was the Media Officer for The Open.

Alan had the job of transcribing the post round interviews and let me say here, that it was nothing what it is like these days. Just a few players would be singled out for interview in those mid-to-late 1990s and while Alan worked as hard as his fingers would allow in transcribing the main interviews, it was then up to the individual journalist to record and transcribe for the most part their own individual interviews.

It was the 1997 Open Championship at Royal Troon and defending champion, Tom Lehman has posted a disappointing first round 74 and it was Alan’s job to grab a few lines.

“So, Tom how did you play?” said Alan. Lehman responded: “I played crap!”.

Alan returned to the Media Centre, and in discussion with Stewart, wondered whether he could place Lehman, and as defending champion of golf’s oldest major, in that position of providing a transcript that had the word ‘crap’ in reply to how he played.

Suffice to say, the handful of lines from Lehman post his first round began with the question: “Well Tom? How did you play today?”

Tom’s official reply: “I didn’t play all that well today”.