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Portlethen, Aberdeen, Scotland • Age 59 • Handicap 17.8
Home Course: Paul Lawrie Golf Centre
Andrew estimates that he’s been connected to golf for nearly 35 years, yet if you added up the years he was actually playing, the total might be closer to eight to ten.
There were long stretches when work and other interests demanded his attention. There was also the serious knee injury that ended his football days and first pointed him toward a game he could continue playing.
Now, at 59, Andrew is back on the course regularly — and much of his golf is shared with his wife, Jennifer.
When Football Was No Longer an Option
As a teenager and young adult, football was Andrew’s game. He was a promising player until a severe injury left him with what he describes as an “exploded” knee joint.
Several operations followed, and his outlook on being physically active changed considerably.
“Walking became something I no longer took for granted,” he says.
His consultant told him contact sports were over and that any future sport would need to be recreational. Andrew’s earliest memory of trying golf is certainly different — he still had a cast extending from his right hip to his foot when he first attempted to swing a club.
Physiotherapy meant golf had to wait, but he eventually came back to it. As Andrew puts it, the “competitive need” in him still required an outlet.
Golf Comes and Goes
Golf would remain part of Andrew’s life for decades, although rarely uninterrupted.
He left school at 16, worked in a toy shop and then joined the Royal Air Force as a Weapons Technician. After leaving the RAF, he became a mature student studying mechanical engineering before building a career in the oil and gas industry.
He also developed a successful photography business, Killer Heels Photography. His work has appeared on hundreds of magazine covers, books, album covers and advertising campaigns, and four books of his photography have been published.
Between career and photography, there simply wasn’t always room for regular golf.
“Golf is very much a perishable skill,” Andrew says.
Anyone who has returned after a lengthy break will understand exactly what he means.
A Wedding Day Round in St. Andrews
Golf was still very much in the picture when Andrew met Jennifer, and it even found its way into their wedding day.
The couple married in St. Andrews in 2000, just one week after The Open had been played there.
On the morning of the wedding, Andrew and two friends played The Duke’s Course. He exchanged the golf shoes for wedding attire that afternoon, but the golf wasn’t quite finished.
Andrew and Jennifer were staying at The Scores Hotel near the R&A and the Old Course. With the summer light lasting well into the evening, they made their way onto the 18th green of the Old Course around midnight and rolled a few putts.
More than 20 years later, Jennifer would be the reason Andrew started playing regularly again.
This Time, They’re Playing Together
Jennifer enrolled in a 12-week ladies’ introduction to golf program at Portlethen. Watching her take up the game was enough to convince Andrew to bring his own clubs back out.
For the past two-plus years, he’s been playing more seriously again, and golf has become something they can enjoy together.
It has also changed the way they travel. Their holidays now tend to include a few rounds wherever possible, with Tenerife becoming a favorite golf destination.
Given Andrew’s history with his knee, one part of the arrangements is essential.
“Buggies are a must!”
Rethinking How He Plays at 59
Andrew isn’t approaching golf the same way he might have in his younger years.
He’s paying much more attention to rhythm and tempo.
“You really do not need to try and hit the ‘skin’ off the ball,” he says.
This season, his thinking has been reduced to two words: fairways and greens.
He even has a good argument for the first half of that equation: “It’s actually impossible to lose a ball if you are on the fairway!”
Putting has become another area of focus. Andrew realized that the difference between three-putting and two-putting every hole adds up to 18 strokes over a round.
For a golfer trying to bring scores down, he sees plenty of opportunity on the greens without needing to find another 20 yards off the tee.
The Competitive Side Hasn’t Gone Anywhere
Playing smarter doesn’t mean Andrew has stopped caring about the result.
He recently hit a tee shot to less than three feet from the hole. Making the putt would have given him two birdies in one round for the first time.
He missed.
Days later, that was still the shot occupying his thoughts — not the birdie he had made during the same round.
“Foolish,” he admits.
It’s something Andrew recognizes about himself beyond golf as well. Successes can be quickly dismissed while the thing that didn’t quite work gets his attention. He’s also quick to point out that many of the successes he has enjoyed have involved other people, and he remains a big believer in team effort.
Perhaps that’s part of why this latest stretch of golf suits him so well. After years when the game had to fit around everything else, Andrew now gets to play regularly, travel with his clubs, work on his own game, and share many of those rounds with Jennifer.
After nearly 35 years of golf coming and going, he’s making considerably more room for it now.
We appreciate Andrew taking the time to share his story with Senior Golf Source.
