Golf: 'Emperor' rich in memories

Stuart Jones competes in the 1974 Fiji Open. And what about the floppy hats.

New Zealand's greatest amateur golfer of the past 50 years has just turned 80 after establishing a career record that is highly unlikely to be matched.

Stuart Jones, dubbed "The Emperor" by the Herald's T.P. McLean, won seven national amateur championships from 1955 to 1971.

Only A.D.S. Duncan, who had 10 victories between 1899 and 1922, was more successful.

Amid the myriad other honours that Jones won on the courses of the world were two professional tournaments, a Canadian amateur title and membership of New Zealand teams that finished second and third in the Eisenhower Trophy, the world amateur championship.

His record stands out as even more remarkable in this era of ever-younger golfing stars, when you learn that he didn't start playing the game until he was 23 and had enjoyed a successful rugby career.

"I'd played football and done pretty damn good at that," he said from his Hastings home this week.

"I got very keen on the old golf and got my handicap down to three in 10 months and I was on scratch the following year.

"It's like life. The more you put into it, the better you get from it. I was an avid practiser. You've got to keep at it. I still practise quite a bit, hitting up to 80 balls a day. I live by a park and I can sneak out there."

Jones was 30 when he won his first national amateur title on the Auckland Golf Club's course at Middlemore.

Further national titles came in 1959 (Paraparaumu), 1961 (New Plymouth), 1962 (Titirangi), 1964 (Hamilton), 1966 (Russley) and 1971 (Hutt).

He was into his 40s when he won the Watties Classic at Hastings in 1965, beating a field of professionals, which included British Open winners Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle.

Five years later at Tauranga he won the Spalding Masters from a similar field, which also included David Graham, who later won a US Open.

Jones was at the very first Eisenhower tournament at St Andrews in 1958 in a team with Bob Charles, John Durry and Ted McDougall. They finished fourth.

He was in the 1964 team that finished third in Italy and the 1970 lineup, who were second in Spain.

One of his fondest memories of travelling with New Zealand teams came in the 72-hole tournament he played in South Africa at the age of 50.

He finished level with a young Englishman, who was the star of the British team, and then lost on the fifth extra hole. The winner? Nick Faldo, later to win the British Open and the US Masters.

Despite four hip replacements, heart surgery and leg surgery, Jones still plays three times a week at the Hastings Golf Club where he once went round in 60.

He uses a cart and his handicap is 13 and he reckons he has retired from the club championship after winning it 17 times, the last at the age of 72.

He worked at the family retail business in Hastings rather than playing for money and he has been asked often if he has regrets.

"A lot of people ask me what I have got out of it and I say the people that I've met and the friends that I've made. It's a wonderful game for that and you can keep on playing it until you fall over."

Long may the Emperor stand up on the tee.