John Letters

The company was actually started by his father, also called John, in a small workshop in Bridgeton, Glasgow, in 1919, but it was the son, who became involved in the mid-1930s, who built the firm into a major concern, exporting to nearly every country in the world from its factory at Hillington.

Letters was recognised as an expert in golf club production and design, and top players were quick to recognise that having a set of Letters clubs in the bag was as good a start as any when trying to win a major championship.

Fred Daly used them to win the Open Championship in 1947, a succession of Ryder Cup teams favoured them, and names which positively ooze golf nostalgia - Dai Rees, John Panton, Christie O'Connor - spent more or less their entire careers with Letters.

It is claimed that after Daly's victory, which was at Hoylake, the legendary Henry Cotton complained in the clubhouse that Daly had won because he had been out on the course in more favourable conditions on the final day, but others felt natural ability and a decent set of clubs had more to do with it.

Arguably, however, the biggest name to be associated with the company was Gary Player, the South African ''man in black'' who takes his well-deserved place near the top of the list of all-time golfing greats, and who used Letters' clubs for 15 years.

The story goes that John Letters went to South Africa to promote his company's products, met the young Player, and eventually brought him to the United Kingdom. He gave Player his first set of John Letters' clubs and a bag with the name on it and the rest, as a member of the Letters family put it, is history.

A photograph exists somewhere of Player, shortly after his arrival in Britain following his link-up with Letters, dressed in the unfamiliar garb of pinstripes and a bowler.

Others who played with clubs bearing the Letters name included Arnold Palmer, Tony Jacklin, Bob Charles, Graham Marsh, and Bernhard Langer. In women's golf, Scot Jessie Valentine, a notable predecessor of Cathy Panton, used Letters. Indeed they covered several generations.

In 1958, Letters became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dunlop, who put up much-needed investment capital for rapid expansion. John stayed as managing director for nine years, but then left to form the Craigton Golf Co Ltd, of Glasgow, which, by 1970, was producing about 5000 golf clubs a week, roughly half of which were exported to all parts of the world, with the exception of the then Soviet Union.

One of his brothers, Jimmy, continued to manage the original John Letters company until 1989, organising a management buy-out in 1983 when Dunlop rationalised its subsidiaries.

In the strongly competitive world of golf equipment manufacturing, and with foreign imports creating havoc, Jimmy had to negotiate with Dunlop for the illustrious Letters name, assets, trademarks, and contracts.

In 1986 Scottish Heritable Trust became a minority shareholder, and it assumed overall investment control in 1988. In turn, Letters was bought by a management-led team in 1991 for more than #500,000. The Craigton Golf Co Ltd was sold in 1974, and none of the Letters family now is involved in the golf business, though the name well and truly lives on.

John Letters, who lived in Newton Mearns on the outskirts of Glasgow and was a Justice of the Peace for many years, was awarded the MBE for his services to golf and for export achievement in 1964.

Those who knew him say that he was an ambitious man with an outgoing personality, and that these two characteristics greatly helped to win much of the business for the company which bore his name.

He also insisted that Letters' clubs were produced to the highest standards, and experts are united in the view that his passing marks the end of an era.

John Letters married his wife, Bethia, in 1940. She died in September of last year, but he is survived by four brothers, a sister, and a daughter, Pat.