Obituary: Tom Brough, Golden Shears open champion 1976

Tom Brough, the 1976 Golden Shears open champion. Photo /Golden Shears

New Zealand shearing legend and 1976 Golden Shears open champion Tom Brough has died, aged almost 81.

His death was confirmed by wife Larraine, who said he passed away on Sunday morning in Waikato Hospital after suffering a stroke.

Brough had had another stroke about six years ago but staged a recovery that amazed even the toughest in the shearing industry and his other major loves of the rural and outdoors life – farming and hunting.

He wrote a book to tell his story: "The Way it Was: A Farming, Shearing, Hunting Life."

"I think he showed the determination that shearers have to recover as well as he did," Larraine Brough said.

"We think we are very lucky to have had the bonus six years with him."

It was echoed by shearing great and Shearing Sports New Zealand chairman Sir David Fagan, who at the age of 16 in the 1970s had Tom Brough as an instructor on a Wool Board course in the King Country, where Brough lived all his life.

Tom Brough, middle row second from left, at a Golden Shears open champions' reunion in 1997. Photo / Supplied

Fagan said that following the initial stroke, it was amazing to see Brough, who had also served as a competition judge, back supporting the shows - the humblest of champions simply promoting the industry, the sport and the competitors.

Home was the remote farming area of Aria, as it was also for fellow shearing legend Brian "Snow" Quinn, the two born within a week in January 1941.

After Quinn's move to the South Island, they remained great friends but became fierce rivals in many of the great battles of the shearing competition board.

At the age of 20, Tom Brough was 13th in the open championship heats at the first Golden Shears in 1961, missing qualification for the semi-finals by just one place.

In his first final, in 1966, he was runner-up to second-time winner Bing Macdonald - the first of four times the bridesmaid.

The points difference was the equivalent of two seconds in time, Brough first-off in the 20-sheep in 25min 5sec, almost a minute clear of next-man-off Macdonald, who with the better quality in the cauldron in front of more than 2000 fans in Masterton's War Memorial Stadium won by 0.1583pts.

While Quinn dominated the first decade-and-a-bit of the Golden Shears, winning the famed open championship in 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1970-1972, Brough, who in the 1950s had won the New Zealand Championship at the Waikato A and P Show, chased the Golden Shears open – the Wimbledon of Shearing - for 16 years before finally winning, to possibly unprecedented applause, in 1976 – his eighth time in the final.

Listen to Jamie Mackay interview Sir David Fagan about Tom Brough on The Country below:

He was runner-up in 1966 and Quinn years 1967, 1968 and 1972, and third in 1975, behind Northland gun and first-time finalist Norm Blackwell.

Brough's 1976 win was by just 0.2933pts from new kid on the block Roger Cox, who won in March 1977 and headed for Britain to win the first World Championship three months later.

His loyalty, commitment, passion and fascination for Masterton's big event meant the King Country farmer was either a competitor, judge or spectator at every Golden Shears up to and including the 60th championships celebrations in 2020.

The 2021 "Shears", or "The Goldies" as now known by many, was cancelled amid a Covid-19 alert in March.

In 1968, he toured the UK after Quinn was unable to take up the winner's trip that year, and he was also a member of the New Zealand Transtasman series team in 1976.

Tom Brough was the Golden Shears open champion in 1976. Photo / Supplied

A Wool Board instructor from 1973 to 1990, he first judged at Golden Shears in 1979, just three years after his win, was a world records shearing judge from 1987 to 1993, and judged at six world shearing championships.

Shearing gave him the deposit for his sheep and cattle farm at Aria which he developed to the point where he was the winner of the open section of the King Country Farmer of the Year contest in 1982.

"Apart from watching the shearing in his later years there was nothing more Tom liked than to talk pig hunting with young shearers," Larraine Brough said.

Funeral arrangements had not been announced by early today but it would likely be private, due to Covid-19 restrictions.