Gough making his name in a different ball game

Older sibling Richard remains revered in this corner of the world thanks to his footballing exploits with Dundee United, Rangers and Scotland down the years, but 49-year-old Jamie is making quite a name for himself in the dimpled ball game. Well, in the eyes of most folk anyway. "Richard plays a lot more now and I try to teach him but he doesn't listen to me ... he has a style all of his own," reported Gough with a telling chuckle.

Big brother may just batter and clatter on himself but there are plenty of others who are benefitting from Gough's experience, knowledge and philosophy which is very much influenced by the approach of the celebrated 'doctor of golf', John Jacobs, who diagnosed the various intricacies of the swing through the flight of a player's ball. "I'm a strong believer in John Jacobs and a lot of the technology now pretty much backs up about 95 per cent of what he said," said Gough, who has 30 years of teaching behind him. "I'm a mix of old and new school really. A lot of what I do on a day-to-day basis is maintenance. It's all about reinforcing good habits and if a guy is playing well you have to keep him playing well."

The aforementioned Sullivan, a former Walker Cup player from Nuneaton who won the Scottish Open Amateur Strokeplay title in 2011 before taking the professional plunge, is Gough's current rising star having won twice on the European Tour in South Africa over the past couple of months. The evergreen Jimenez, meanwhile, continues to flourish in his 50s, both on the regular tour and the senior circuit. "The ball doesn't know how old you are," added Gough of this game for all the ages

It's not just the title successes that are savoured, though. Back in October, the spirited Scot, Drysdale, retained his tour card on the very last hole of the very last event of the regular season in Australia. This game of fluctuating fortunes, that can leave finger nails nibbled into crumbling stumps, is not for the faint hearted. The players may be in the spotlight but for those behind the scenes, the pressure of trying to produce a winning performance becomes all consuming. "When you are teaching players at this level you have, in a sense, their livelihoods in your hands and there is a lot of stress involved," admitted Gough. "Every day of every event, I feel the nerves. It's like a being a football manager in a way. If you're team is playing well it's great, if they are struggling it's a sickner. But I have six or seven guys at every tournament. You might have one winning a tournament and the other missing the cut by a shot. There are highs and lows every week. I need to worry about the guys missing the cut more than the guys winning and it's hard not to take it all personally. It's a fickle business."

Having turned professional as a teenager back in 1983, Gough quickly realised that he would not make the grade as a touring player but bouncing around the globe as a touring coach is the next best thing. He sold off his various teaching academies that were dotted around his native land in South Africa and, over the past eight years, the worldwide golfing circus has taken him to just about every nook and crannie of this spinning clump of space rock. "I do about 33 weeks a year on tour now," he said. "To make a living out of playing golf, you have to be very, very good. It's the special players who do that. I was never good enough to make the grade at this level and I gravitated more towards the teaching side. I decided to go out on tour and ended up staying out here. You want to be working with world class players. I didn't make it as a player but this is the next best thing and Andy's win recently was the 12th tour victory I've been involved in with a player. It is very gratifying when you see guys you work with getting better and reaping the rewards."

Golf and Gough continues to be a rewarding alliance.