Just loving our beautiful game - Interview with Alan Hansen

What’s your first golfing memory?
When I was five years old I’d follow my brother, who was ten, to the local course in Sauchie, Clackmannanshire, just 100 yards from our family home in Scotland. I’d pick up a golf club and swing it and swing it...and I’m still swinging it.

Who taught you to play golf?
Nobody taught me to play. From a young age I simply watched what my brother did and I’d just keep on hitting that ball!

Is it true that you played alongside Sandy Lyle as a teenager?
In 1972 I was first reserve in the Scottish Boys Team and that’s when Sandy was playing for England. So we never actually played alongside each other, but I caddied for Scottish international Steve Martin and he knew Sandy, so our paths did cross.

What is your current handicap?
I’m off 3 at the moment. When I signed for Liverpool in 1977 I was 2. The lowest I’ve been is 1.7, back in 2001. I was 45 years old, playing a lot more golf, and I was still relatively fit. This was probably the period in my life when I enjoyed my best golf.

Where is your home club?
I live very close to Hillside Golf Club, Southport, and that’s where I play when I’m up north. It’s a great course, one of the best in the country. Many of the game’s greatest players rate it highly – in fact Greg Norman once described the back nine hole as the best he had played anywhere. It’s absolute perfection. Hillside’s a competitive club, and that suits me fine. I try to play in the competition every Wednesday and I’m at the range at least a couple of times a week. When I’m in London I play at Queenwood, a very private club which makes it easy to get out and play quickly. I can’t stand slow golf.

Who do you play with?
I’ve played a lot with Kenny Dalglish, but he’s pretty busy now he’s managing Liverpool. We’re a good partnership – we take some beating. [Laughs.]

Do you miss playing regularly in Scotland – will you ever move back?
I’ll never go back to live. I’ve been in England now for 35 years but I never forget where I came from and still play golf there whenever I can. I go to the Dunhill Links Championship every year, if I’m lucky enough to be invited. St Andrews is a sensational place, I love it there. I also still play back at my local childhood course at Sauchie.

What are your ambitions in golf?
Like everyone else I just want to play the best golf I can. We all know this game can drive you crazy. Anyone who has played sport to a high level always believes he can maintain that performance as he grows old – I want to play golf as well today as I did 20 years ago! Sometimes you come off the golf course and feel you’ve done so well that you’ll never hit a bad shot again, then another time you’ll come off and think I’ll never hit a good shot again.

Favourite golfing destination?
Definitely Pebble Beach in California. A group of eight of us go every year from Queenwood and play Cypress Point. It’s absolutely the destination for golf heaven. Many Americans say that if they had just one day left to live, they’d spend it playing golf at Cypress Point.

You’ve been lucky enough to play Augusta National?
I’ve played at Augusta three times now, once with my son, Adam, once with Gary [Lineker] and most recently, in 2008, with my wife Janet. It is a very special place. You feel that history and tradition the minute you get there, it has that aura of a great sporting theatre from the moment you walk through the gates. Playing at Augusta is like winning the lottery.

You’re very good player – how difficult is the course to score on?
Let’s put it this way, after our round Gary and I found ourselves agreeing on the fact that golf is the sport with the biggest gulf between the amateurs and the pros. The standards and sheer mental toughness of the professionals is just unbelievable. I think that if you put a talented amateur footballer into a good Liverpool team, he may not look great but he could possibly get by without disgracing himself. This is not the case with golf. If you put an amateur into a high level golf tournament, such as the Masters, you are talking light years of difference. I’ve played at a lot of different golf courses over the years, but Augusta really does present unique challenges. Nick Faldo, a three-times Masters winner, described the pressure as like trying to drop a 7-iron on to an area the size of a dining-room table, and that’s from one of the greatest golfers of all time. There’s a lot of skill needed.

A dream fourball – who would you invite?
Rory McIlroy, the late, great Seve Ballesteros and Tiger Woods. McIlroy because he’s young and exciting with talent oozing out of his ears and so exciting to watch it was a privilege to have been around in his era and to watch him in his prime. Woods, circa 1999, when he was winning everything in sight.

A lot of your contemporaries enjoy golf – who has some ‘game’?
Gary Lineker plays off 5, Alan Shearer 6, Lee Dixon 4, Kenny Dalglish 5 and Gary Gillespie 2 – there’s the scratch team. When we get together we all play what you can only describe as ‘kamakaze’ golf – always off the back tees, we want to play the hardest test. We don’t play to have fun, it’s got to beat you up. I mentioned to Darren Clarke recently that Alan [Shearer], Gary [Gillespie] and I were going to the Fontana Golf Club in Austria. He said that we had to play it off the tips. We did. The day after a EuroPro event, the greens were like lightning. None of us broke 90!

Golf or football – if you had your time over again which would you choose as a career?
I’ve always been a realist and knew that I’d have a better career playing football than if I’d chosen golf, even though golf’s my first love.

What golfing gadget could you not live without?
Whether or not this qualifies as a gadget I don’t know, but it would have to be the long putter. I’m a bad putter and about 15 years ago I reached a point where my hands shook violently when I picked up a short stick – it was like I was using a pneumatic drill! It’s fun and games for me, putting, but in all honesty if they banned the long putter I don’t know what I’d do. I seriously think I’d struggle to continue playing.

What's been the best new piece of equipment or technology in golf that has helped your game?
Specialist club fitting. At the Callaway Centre in Chessington they have a computer that does a test to ensure you get the right driver shaft to suit you as an individual. It’s called the CPAS – the Callaway Performance Analysis System. It uses a ball-flight simulator and two high-speed cameras that look at your launch angle, your ball speed and your spin rates. The guys there are fantastic and they use this technology to come up with the shaft that suits you perfectly. I’m a better driver of the ball than I’ve ever been as a result.

Do you follow the pro game?
Absolutely, I follow every tournament. I look at the results – especially the Scottish players, and I follow guys I’ve played with. I look at the money lists online and where the tours and players are going. I can’t get enough of it. And I quite literally sit glued to the Masters and the Open.

Your favourite tournament?
The Open Championship, every year. It’s a fantastic tradition for me. I first went back in 1970, it rained so heavily and I got soaked but it was great. This year it’s just up the road, at Royal Lytham, and I can’t wait.

Who is your favourite professional golfer past or present?
Jack Nicklaus, he’s an absolute hero of mine. To my eyes he plays golf the way it should be played. What a gentleman he is, with the greatest humility when he lost a game and the greatest humility whenever he won. That’s how it should be done.

Who are the best three celebrity golfers you know?
Tim Henman, Jamie Redknapp and Kenny Dalglish are the ones I’d choose, because for me, they are all top players.

What’s your best golfing memory?
Winning the Scratch Championship at Hillside in 2001. It was as tough as it could get and I won. What an amazing feeling that was, for me to get my name on the board.