HONG KONG, 2 April 2015 (HK Golfer News Wire) Following a statement released by the Hong Kong St Andrews Society on 2 April it is with sadness that we report that Jock Mackie, one of the most notable amateurs in Hong Kong golfing history, has died at the age of 87.
Mackie, who was a member at both the Hong Kong Golf Club and Shek O Country Club during his playing days, was an integral part of the Hong Kong team throughout the 1950s and 1960s and spearheaded the side that claimed the inaugural Putra Cup in 1961.
Born in Penang to Scottish parents, Mackie arrived in Hong Kong, via Singapore and Australia, in his late teens and quickly established himself as one of the then colony’s finest players. Having started the game at his mother’s behest at the age of eight, Mackie got down to scratch within a few months of joining Fanling and was soon winning titles.
Arguably the most prolific local sportsman of his generation, Mackie represented Hong Kong is six different sports – including rugby, cricket, swimming, tennis and hockey – but it was golf in which he truly excelled.
Mackie first entered employment as a management trainee with Jardine Matheson in 1948, before becoming a sales director with Dennis Hazell & Company, a distribution company that handled Slazenger and Penfold sports goods, two of the biggest golf brands of the era.
It was towards the end of his time with Dennis Hazell, that Mackie enjoyed his annus mirabilis – 1959.
As well as playing in the inaugural Hong Kong Open that year, Mackie, as a key member of the Fanling fraternity, along with the likes of Kim Hall, Alan Sutcliffe and Hugh de Lacy Staunton, helped organize it too. “I remember getting on the phone and calling up the Australian pros to see if they could come and play in it,” he said in an interview with HK Golfer in 2009. “It started off small but we put on a very good tournament and look where it is today. We’re all very proud of what it has become.
Mackie started that first Hong Kong Open brightly, carding a solid 70 to finish the first round just one shot off the pace. Although a 76 on the second day put him out of championship contention, the very fact that he was representing Hong Kong in the colony’s own tournament was, in his own words, “a tremendous feeling.”
Fast forward a few months and Mackie was teeing it up alongside Max Faulkner, one of the greats of the game, at The Open at Murifield. Having got through qualifying earlier on in the week, Jock was, by his own admission, “jolly nervous.”
“The biggest difference between amateurs and professionals back then became immediately obvious,” he remembered. “On the first hole Faulkner hit his approach just short of the green and received generous applause from the crowd, which was understandable, as he was a former Open champion. Then I stepped up, having hit my tee shot slightly further, and put it on the green, closer than him, only a few yards from the flag. The crowd remained deathly silent. It was all pretty amusing.”
Later on in his round, at the 15th hole, Jock sprayed his drive into a beverage stand. “In those days you couldn’t get relief – you had to play it where it lay, although it was a little embarrassing taking my stance in a hut,” he said. It proved to be one of the more memorable holes of his career, however, as Mackie chipped back to the fairway, put his third on to the green and sunk the putt for a par.
Mackie, who said he never considered turning professional, later became the managing director at trading company Robertson, Wilson & Company before becoming chief executive of AS Watson, Hutchison’s largest subsidiary, in 1970. During his time heading up AS Watson, Mackie established the ParknShop supermarket chain and took Watson’s into the retail sector.
Mackie continued playing to an extremely high standard until his 60s when his rugby days caught up with him. Hip trouble forced him to put time on his amateur golf career, but his connections with the game on a local level didn’t end there. In 1980 he acted as non-playing captain for the Hong Kong World Amateur Team Championship and he would later go on to become president of the Hong Kong Golf Association. He was also successful in pushing through Hong Kong’s bid to host both the Eisenhower and Espirito Santo events in Hong Kong in 1984.
Mackie was chieftain of the Hong Kong St Andrew’s Society in 1972/73 and the society’s annual golf tournament is known as Jock’s Pot in his honour.
He is survived by his wife, Jean, and his family of three daughters, 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.