Peter Corrigan – AGW Member 1995 – 2016. Member Tributes

Peter Corrigan – Passed away Friday 17th June, 2016. AGW member from 1995 – 2016

GORAN ZACHRISSON, President Association of Golf Writers.

Peter was like the safe part of our archipelago in Sweden with thousands of islands, someone to pass in the press room to feel safe with and to understand that you have come to the right place.

Rueful, if that is the word, or thoughtful and yet quick when asked for an opinion.

A wonderful companion at any table, any session and I wish he had been Swedish for his clever and careful writings would have done us all a lot of good.

I remember an evening many years ago, in Italy, Sam Torrance had suddenly turned up with the long putter. It divided the press room. Peter chuckled and said the long putter would go away.

We talked ourselves into the evening and Peter said: ”It must go away for I have to find some sleep”.

He was brilliant and is, of course will be sadly missed.

TONY STENSON

Very sorry to learn about Peter Corrigan

I met Peter a few times when my father was Irish sports correspondent for The Observer. Gent, with wonderful sense of humour, and gifted writer with wry wit.

Got to see him at Hoylake in 2014, which meant a lot.

PHILIP QUINN

I was so upset and shocked to hear that Peter has died. He was one of the kindest men I have ever met, a good friend but also a great mentor. It was Peter who persuaded the Observer to take me on in the early days of my freelancing career and he was always there to give help and advice in his gentle way. His sense of humour was brilliant, even if you were sometimes the subject of the fun being poked.

He could produce a mishap or two himself, often at the AGW Home Internationals. His countless humorous observations, especially at the dinners, enhanced the matches.

His beaming face in press centres and AGW events will be sorely missed.

I feel great sorrow for Jamie who worshipped his Dad. Peter’s incisive and witty journalism, lives on with his son.

NORMAN DABELL

As players we complemented each other perfectly. For the most part we were both bloody useless. However, with a combined handicap of about 124 we could,occasionally, do some damage. One such occasion, writ large in the annals of Welsh golfing history, was a victory masterminded by captain Corrigan in his beloved home internationals, an annual competition played between golf writers of Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland.

The venue was Celtic Manor so Corrigan and his five teammates were performing on home soil. In the final afternoon’s foursomes the result was in the balance but Corrigan, sick of supping from the losers’ wooden spoon, was determined to build on the good work of Michael the Voice Blair and Martin Scoop Johnson and the heavyweight duo of the late, great Dai Davies and Bob Davies. Dai and Bob were not related but that did not stop Corrigan from christening them, for some reason, the Sumo Sisters. They took it in good humour. If they hadn’t it would have made no difference.

That day Corrigan played like a man possessed. His driving was long and straight, his putting inspired. It had to be for we were up against the crack Scottish pairing of Colin Callander and Jock MacVicar. Whilst it is true that we managed to blow a four hole lead with four to play, the upshot is that we secured the precious half point that clinched the championship for Wales.

It is probably a slight exaggeration to suggest that Corrigan’s exploits led the way for Europe’s subsequent stirring victory in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor but Monty and his men could not have celebrated longer and harder than Peter and his team.

TIM GLOVER

Peter Corrigan was a wonderful raconteur, a terrible chipper, a good companion, a man of Labour persuasion and great knowledge. One thing he was not was a man of straw. He was one of the most substantial journalists of his – and a good many other people’s – time. He had been, among other things, a football writer, a golf writer, a general sports columnist, a sports editor and a managing editor.

His trick was to straddle eras as if they were lines in a road. He was as valid a writer in his sixties and seventies as he had been in the nineteen sixties and seventies. He covered England’s World Cup victory in 1966 and a half century later he was still writing with humour, self deprecation, sympathy and passion. To him sport mattered because it was played and watched by people and he was, to use a phrase that jars, a people person.

His writing was clear, concise, grammatical and as a result it was easy to read. He knew that he had to do his reporting before he sat down to write and he knew how to do it so that what he said was based on informed knowledge and not speculation. He was a reporter who put in the leg work and made the telephone calls, not someone who opened up his laptop and typed whatever came into his head.

Some might call his writing style old-fashioned but I prefer to call it good. He didn’t split infinitives unnecessarily. His writing did not include dangling participles. His dependent clauses didn’t wander off never to return. He knew the difference between flaunt and flout, former and latter.

You would read two sentences such as the following in other places but never in a Peter Corrigan story. “Rory McIlroy came off the golf course and said he was tired and confused. “I am tired and confused” the northern Irishman said.”

It didn’t matter whether he was writing about soccer, rugger, golf or an equestrian event, his copy was a pleasure to read, written to length, often contained a joke or two and would have been filed on time. Many of those who sat alongside him at a sports event secretly envied the facility with which he composed and served up such good pieces. Rarely did a Corrigan sentence have to be read twice or more to acquire its true meaning. If he had a doubt about whether or not a sentence worked, he would mutter and rewrite it so that its meaning was crystal clear.

To sit next to him was to hear a constant rumble of muttering, an occasional coughing fit, an expletive or two, maybe a joke as he concocted another article that could be a model of accuracy, knowledge and style.

He was a man of golf without being a golfer, an important figure at his beloved Glamorganshire golf club in Penarth and at Royal Porthcawl a few miles along the coast. He took part in a sporting discussion at Porthcawl last autumn and if his answers did not always contain the most up to date information on the subject about which he was talking, they were delivered with a smile on his voice and quite often a funny punchline.

The Amateur was held this week at Royal Porthcawl and in healthier times Peter would have been there, mooching about the media tent, lightening and lighting the place up with his presence and amusing and arguing with members at the bar. As the finalists began their 36-hole match to determine the winner, they might have noticed the club flag was at half mast.

It had been lowered as a tribute to a member and a man of substance, Peter Corrigan.

JOHN WHITBREAD

I have just returned from an enjoyable 10 day holiday in South West France yesterday and was desperately saddened to read of dear Peter Corrigan’s passing, but lifted by the heart-warming tributes from close friends and colleagues

These came from peers who knew Peter so well from working and relaxing with him regularly, but I ,as someone who met him on a more irregular basis can also testify to his qualities as a supremely gifted writer and a totally likeable companion.

Peter was also very kind and helpful to me and I shall never forget when he was willing to give me a chance to write a third day report for The Observer at The Lancome Tournament in Paris, when the regular writer was unwell.

Peter, like me, was unfortunately unable to master the game he loved to write and talk about. I recall with affection the day that he and I played in an AGW event at Wentworth. I think our foursome was completed by Derek Lawrenson and John Hopkins, who are at the opposite end of the playing stakes.

It was soon clear that the two pairs would meet at the tees and the greens with widely differing routes between. I became very upset with letting everyone else down, but Peter soon had me laughtng at myself and we were able to enjoy each others company while letting the tyros play a different game.

This morning I am just imagining how Peter would be displaying that disarming smile as he gently ribbed all us suffering England fans about how his beloved Wales were still very much in the hunt of the European Championship honours.

I will certainly miss him, but surely not as much as Jamie and the rest of the Corrigan family.My thoughts remain with them.

BBC – https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-36559007

The Golfing Hacker – http://www.thegolfinghacker.com/the-hacker/

The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jun/18/peter-corrigan-columnist-observer-sports-editor

Sports Journalists – https://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/members-news/peter-corrigan-admired-editor-and-columnist-has-died/

Wales on Line: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tribute-peter-corrigan-one-wales-11487781

Irish Examiner – https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/arid-20410374.html

Press Gazette – https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/peter-corrigan-former-observer-sports-editor-who-counted-henry-winter-and-simon-kelner-among-his-proteges/

Wales On LIne – https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tribute-peter-corrigan-one-wales-11487781

Irish Independent – https://www.independent.ie/sport/golf/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-golfs-greatest-scribe-35019243.html

Hold The Front Page – https://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/2016/news/renowned-sports-journalist-who-started-out-at-regional-daily-dies-aged-80/

The Rugby Paper – https://www.therugbypaper.co.uk/all/columnists/peter-jackson/26197/peter-jackson-column-jonathan-davies-loses-his-mentor-and-wales-lose-a-star/