Professionally speaking: When were you at your happiest?

Now that’s a question. I don’t mean knocking in a two-footer to win the mid-week Stableford, I mean looking back over your life and thinking ‘I’m not sure I can be any happier than this’.

Sometimes you don’t realise it when you are living it. It’s only when you look back on life you and appreciate that that was the time of your life.

I can remember wheeling my super divider golf bag, full of a mixture of clubs from Woolworths 3,5,7 and 9-irons, some sort of battered sand wedge, Tony Jacklin driver, some old hand-me-down 3-wood and an Arnold Palmer putter.

I would walk out of the block of flats to Clapham Junction, get a bus to Putney and then another bus to Roehampton. It must have looked strange in those days, a young lad with both arms wrapped around a golf trolley, holding onto them as if they were the most important things in his life – they were.

I would then walk what seemed like 25 miles down Priory Lane to the gates of Richmond Park. The view as I walked into the park was always pure joy. The beautiful colours, the smell of cut grass, watching the deer in the distance, walking, grazing, trotting. This was my second home for long school holidays, or days, shall we say, when I wasn’t feeling well enough to attend Spencer Park School. Playing three rounds a day with a short break for a Mars bar and a can of Coke, sometimes I would treat myself to a slice of heavy bread pudding.

I was 15-16 years old, I had not had a grown-up drink, nor had I done grown up things – hadn’t smoked, anything.

These were the days when the sun seemed to shine every day, my handicap was coming down nicely, I was the youngest player to be picked to play for my club (White Lodge) and I had a season ticket which meant I had unlimited golf to play on the two courses at Richmond Park (Princes & Dukes). These were the days of fun without consequence.

To this day I cannot tell you what gave me the drive to make me play and practise so hard. Was it to get out of the concrete council estate? Was it to get away from my dad who, shall we say, used to find life difficult sometimes and took it out on me on what seemed like a daily basis. Even though we would spend hours of quality time together on the course, he was a man who I thought was truly frustrated that he was never brave or confident enough to get out of the concrete jungle. He was a shift worker at Garton’s glucose factory, two days on, two days off, 6 til 6.

We would drive to Richmond Park in his old beaten up Austin Wolseley. Sometimes it wouldn’t start so dad had to use a starter handle to get the old thing going. Cracked leather seats and always playing was one of two big cartridge cassette tapes, Diana Ross greatest hits or Elvis Presley, live via satellite from Hawaii.

Even now some 40 years on hearing those songs takes me back to sunny days driving to the course. Back in the 60s/70s it seemed that middle-aged, working-class people just went through the same routine over and over. Mum had three different jobs in one day. On Sunday mornings Shirley Bassey, Barbra Streisand or John Barry would be playing, dad would go down the pub about 11.30am, roast potatoes would be on the bar for the customers and mum would prepare the Sunday roast and sometimes she would pop down for a G&T. Dad would come back about 3, eat and fall asleep in front of the telly.

Dad had a season ticket at Richmond Park also. If my mind serves me right the cost was £70 a year for unlimited golf. One day my dad said to me ‘OK son, you, YOU will need to renew your season ticket.’

How on earth was I going to get £70. If I didn’t I was done for. So more shifts as a paper boy, carrying the heavy Sunday morning papers up flights and flight of stairs, the lifts were always broken.

I must have had the only intelligent people in Battersea who could justify reading the Sunday Times. And of course they always lived on the 14th floor. Those papers weighed a ton. I also delivered taxi cab business cards and any other jobs I could get. Time was running out, I wasn’t going to be able to pay for my season ticket and that would be a complete nightmare. Golf was the only thing I enjoyed doing.

I was up to about £50 with about two weeks left. I thought I would go down to the course, they all knew me there and I would make some offer to pay the rest as quick as I could or I would work at the club; clean their cars, clean the clubhouse, anything.

I went to the office and spoke to a really kind old boy who used to work there. It was like going to see the headmaster, I was so afraid he would say there was nothing he could do for me.

So I went in there with my 50 odd pounds and said: “I would like to renew my season ticket for next year sir but I don’t have enough money?”

He looked at me with a confused look on his face and said: “You don’t have enough money? Well how much do you have? Because a junior season ticket costs only £13.80.”

My dad had always paid for my season tickets and I just thought they cost £70. Now that’s when was I happiest – that time, that moment in time was the happiest day of my life. I was running, jumping, singing to myself. I can now do the only thing I cared about, playing golf with no restrictions for all of the next year and I had money in my pocket.

The summer of ‘77…

About Dean Wingrove

Dean is the Director of Golf at Wimbledon Park in south London having become the head professional in 1989. he turned pro at 17 and worked at Royal Wimbledon before moving down the road.

In his time he has coached the likes of Roger Chapman, Gordon Brand Jr and Paul Way on the European Tour and now looks after the golfing needs of none other than Ant & Dec.