Peter, We Hardly Knew Ye

John Huggan breaks it to us gently that Peter Dawson will resign as Chief Executive of the R&A in 1915:

News that the R&A's first-ever chief executive, Peter Dawson, will retire from his post in

September 2015 after 16 years on the job comes as no real surprise. With golf in the Olympics and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews finally set to vote on the vexing issue of allowing female members, maybe the 64-year-old Cambridge graduate felt there was nothing much left for him to achieve. Then again, perhaps it is simply time to be at home more with his wife, Juliet -- who has recently not enjoyed the best of health -- and working on the swing that made him a 1-handicapper at his best.

Retiring to spend more time with the family?  So cliched it might be true...this gets to the background on the Dawson era:

Dawson's hiring at the back end of the last century surely had much to do with the need for the "R&A GC" to separate itself from the corporate business of being the game's rule maker outside the United States and Mexico.

 Though if that had been a success, would they now need to address their membership policies?

For all his successes though, the Aberdeen-born Scot's tenure has not been without criticism or controversy. His dealings with the media, an aspect of the job in which he had little or no previous experience, have often been strained. More than once his irritation with awkward questions has been apparent, especially when the subject has been the R&A's lack of women members.

But this gets at what I'll most remember about Peter:

Since 2004, when the R&A and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club went their separate ways, Dawson has more concerned himself with the set-up of British Open venues. All have been lengthened and many have been subjected to what some critics have euphemistically dubbed "the treatment." This year, for example, the first hole at Hoylake will see a new green courtesy of architect Martin Hawtree that bears little or no resemblance to any other on the course. Likewise, the controversial 17th green at Royal Birkdale has seen many informed observers query Dawson's level of involvement in this often-esoteric area of the game.

The 17th green at Birkdale was comical, and was quickly rebuilt after that Open.  I only played Hoylake the once, but can't remember there being anything particularly wrong with it.  More comical was the placement of tee boxes on the New Course when last the Open was at the Old Course, where they were technically OB.  And I've been suspicious of his involvement in the recent dead-of-night changes to the Old Course, though those only make sense if you're worried about scoring during an Open.  

But this certainly raises the stakes on the admissions policy vote in September.  The sense I get from my sources is that it's not at all the slam dunk originally assumed, though up until now the efforts have been to submit the measure to a vote of the full membership, though the bylaws permit passage by a majority of those casting votes in person at the Autumn General Meeting.  But one assumes that as a lame-duck he'll have less leverage over any persuadables.

Stay tuned.