John Jacobs OBE, the founding father of The European Tour, and Peter Alliss, the highly respected former professional turned television commentator, have accepted invitations to become Honorary Members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.
Jacobs,79, has served a lifetime in golf and is enormously respected as the pioneering architect of Europe’’s united approach to the modern game. As a Ryder Cup player, tournament winner, administrator, writer, commentator and an outstanding coach, he has reached the peak of success in many widely different areas of golf.
A Yorkshireman, son of a golf professional, Jacobs earned the unique distinction in his 1955 Ryder Cup debut of winning both his matches in America. Two years later he won the Dutch Open and beat Gary Player for the South African Match Play Championship.
On deciding that his real strength lay in teaching the game he soon became one of the most sought-after of all golf coaches; throughout Europe; the United States, where teaching academies still bear his name; by amateurs, national teams, and by his fellow tournament professionals.
In 1972, after a successful business venture to establish driving ranges in Britain to help encourage the growth of the game, and following his coaching of the victorious Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team, he accepted the challenge of becoming the first Tournament Director General of the PGA, a position from which he inspired the uniting of nations on the Continent with Britain, and the development of what has become the extremely successful European Tour.
He turned the vision into reality and the position of respect commanded by Europe in the world of golf owes much to his pioneering spirit.
Jacobs’’ great contribution to golf was recognised by his fellow professionals with his appointment as Captain of the 1979 and 1981 European Ryder Cup Teams, and in 1997 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by The Queen for 50 years of outstanding service to golf.
He is an Honorary Life Member of both The European Tour and the Professional Golfers Association and has been inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame and the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame. Last year, the Association of Golf Writers awarded him the Michael Williams Outstanding Services Award.
Alliss, born in Berlin in 1931, also the son of a golf professional, played in eight Ryder Cups between 1953 and 1969 and won 18 professional titles – including three PGA Championships - in an illustrious playing career before retiring from tournament golf to take up a highly successful, diverse career as a broadcaster, writer and golf course designer.
It is for the first of these that he is best known and it was in 1961 that he first commentated for the BBC and went on to become universally recognisable as the velvet voice behind the microphone in the BBC's commentary team. Alliss was twice captain of the Professional Golfers Association in 1962 and 1987 and in 2003 he received Honorary Membership of The European Tour and Life Membership of the PGA.
Ken Schofield, Executive Director of The European Tour, said: “This is a wonderful honour for two venerable gentlemen, whose achievements and personal standards have left such an indelible mark on the game of golf.”
