Something will be missing when old-time pro Bob McDonald tees it up in the $10,000 A1 Homes/IBM Legends golf pro-am tomorrow at Omanu ... the cutting critique of sharp-tongued former PGA player and coach Allan Snape while riding shotgun alongside him in a cart.
Snape, a former touring pro whose last coaching gig before he lost a long fight with cancer 20 months ago was at Omanu, was a regular at a weekly get-together of old PGA players, wielding his clubs until his ailing frame meant he'd follow his mates around the course in a golf cart slinging good-natured barbs mixed with the odd word of encouragement.
The popular pro was remembered at an Allan Snape Memorial Pro-Am event at Omanu a year ago but the tournament has this year morphed into something much bigger, becoming part of an eight-tournament seniors swing through New Zealand which has attracted a star-studded pro field of some of the biggest names in the game. Tournaments have already been held at Pegasus, Terrace Downs, Ashburton, Timaru and North Shore, with a $30,000 event at Lakes Resort on Sunday and Monday followed by the $50,000 PGA seniors championship at Wairakei from March 1-3.
McDonald, who has been coaching out of the driving range opposite Bayfair for almost a year, will dust off his clubs tomorrow but admitted it wouldn't be the same without Snape there to slag him off.
"Snapey was the instigator of our weekly gatherings, bringing together guys like John Reid, Murray Macklin and Yogi [Dennis Clark] and myself, although I only tagged on at the end because being based in Cambridge (at the St Peter's golf academy) I couldn't get here as often. But this group is what brought me back to playing.
"Towards the end Snapey would drive around in his cart with his morphine pills, slinging off at my game and at everybody else's, obviously in a lot of pain but always with a grin from here to Hamilton across his face.
"Friday is just another round of golf with the boys and if I hit some decent shots and not too many sideways that's all I can hope for."
McDonald has been a PGA professional since 1962 and is recognised as one of New Zealand's leading coaches, having played in more than 250 tournaments over his long career. He has held various club positions both in New Zealand and Australia, including head professional at the prestigious Glenelg Golf Club in Adelaide from 1980 to 1990.
He grew up in a golfing family and learned his trade by spending hours playing alongside great players of his era, including the likes of Sir Bob Charles, Kel Nagle, Peter Thomson.
McDonald was also an astute television commentator for New Zealand PGA tournaments from 1969-79, calling the shots as his best mate John Lister won the Garden City Classic four years in a row while also supplementing his wages by playing a bit too.
"If I made the cut a lot would depend on how well I was playing as to when I made it to air in the commentary box, although at a guess I'd say there might have been twice when I missed commentating completely because I was playing too well, which shows how good I was!
"My fellow commentators would follow me around if I had a late start telling me they were a bit worried about me making the cut. I recall shooting 69 one Friday afternoon which meant I was off in one of the last five groups, drawing the comment 'you won't be helping us much tomorrow', so it became a bit of a running joke."
McDonald has coached several pros on the Asia, Japan and Korean tours and is a past junior and assistant national coach for NZ Golf. He was honoured by the PGA in 2008 with a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the game.
He has known Sir Bob Charles since he was a child caddying for club players in the Wellington region in the 1950s, although he famously missed lugging Charles' bag when he won his first New Zealand Open golf title as an 18-year-old amateur in 1954 at Heretaunga because he was at school.
McDonald shares his good mate's belief that golf is over-complicated in the modern era.
"Golf to Charlie was a way of making a living rather than working in a bank and that's half the problem - most of golf these days is psychological and too goals-focused.
"You watch a young pro miss a two-foot putt and all their goals go out the window while their world crumbles around them, yet missing a two-foot putt is part of playing golf, get on with it.
"[Lee] Trevino was the same. US Open? Got two of those. British Open? Got three. As a pro golfer his only focus was shooting the lowest score he could that day."
Snape might be gone but tomorrow McDonald is looking forward to catching up with luminaries such as Peter Fowler, the Auckland-based Aussie who defied a career-threatening back injury to win the 2011 European senior tour Order of Merit with earnings of €302,327, Aussie Rodger Davis, a former top-10 player who can count New Zealand and Australian Open titles, British PGA and Volvo Masters among his career wins, and Mike Harwood, runner-up to compatriot Ian Baker-Finch at the British Open in 1991.