Take a moment on the tee to remember Stuart
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As the Brora and Royal Dornoch Golf Clubs prepare for their two biggest events of the season – The Clynelish Salver at Brora, which begins on Monday, and the Carnegie Shield at Royal Dornoch, the following Sunday – the sad news came through on Tuesday of the death of Stuart Shaw, a former winner of both competitions and many other events in the county over the past 45 years.
Over a golfing career which began as an apprentice greenkeeper at Royal Dornoch, and a club member at one time or another of all four east coast clubs, Stuart was a tenacious match-play and stroke-play competitor.
I should know – he beat me in two of his three Clynelish finals and he was a double winner of the Carnegie Shield.
In stroke play he won the Royal Dornoch club championship several times and also the Silver Medal. He triumphed in Opens at Brora, Golspie and Dornoch and beyond and was Sutherland’s County Champion on four occasions, his first in 1982.
His swing could not be described as classic, it was individually created and moulded to suit the long hard fairways of Dornoch where his peers, if he had any, would attempt to carry the golf ball onto the greens with spin, while Stuart was already on the green with a running seven iron.
Before teeing off at Brora, Golspie or Dornoch in the next two weeks, pause for a moment to remember Stuart, formerly of Helmsdale, a character we are unlikely to see the like of again.
Bidding for a fourth Salver win at Brora next week is former member Iain Powell, now Murcar, and also in his mind will be a hat-trick of wins having triumphed in the last two years.
Out to stop him is the Brora head greenkeeper, James MacBeath, who after winning his seventh Clynelish Salver has not played for the past two years because of work commitments on the Brora links.
But due to the long dry spell there is not so much cutting to do between rounds this year and the Brora greens staff have been given permission to take part in the competition.
