Every now and again Jock thought of Benny Robertson.
They were in the same class at school and both were interested in golf but somehow they didn’t become great mates. Benny was a natural at the game, Jock thought he was a natural too but his father soon disabused himself of that notion repeatedly telling him all his success at Silverfield was down to a lot of practice and game time. Jock had to agree but every now and again he would say to himself that Benny boy, he is the exception to the rule. Benny was top of the class and in a class of his own among the Junior members. “He really grew out of our group” said Jock. By 14 Benny was turning out for the Silverfield Men’s Team and winning points for the Club in the Edinburgh League. He was tall for his age and looked older and soon grew to well over six feet. Jock felt in a way that Benny looked down on him as a mere mortal, he was unfailingly polite, but somehow distant when the two bumped into each other and exchanged a few words. At least Jock was popular, always playing the daft laddie, always cheery whereas Benny was at times a bit of a loner but he had a few friends both scholastically and golfing-wise who were of the same level of achievement.
Very occasionally, such as in Dads and Lads tournaments at Silverfield, Jock and Benny would end up as opponents and Jock could take in Benny’s fluid, unhurried swing which nonetheless sent the ball off like a bullet invariably in the right direction. Benny’s Dad was a decent low handicap golfer and taught Benny well, but Jock’s Dad usually had the edge on him. Ideally Benny would have liked to tee off at the first in one of these matches and play Jock’s Dad leaving Jock to struggle with Benny’s father who could edge out Jock leaving Benny with a fight on his hands which he relished against the 5 times past Club Champion. However, the Rules of the Tournament stipulated that Fathers teed off at the first so there was no place for an “Australian formation” as Jock called it incorrectly. He was even worse at tennis and didn’t like when a doubles partner suggested this gambit only to hit Jock’s head from behind.
Thursday 20 May was another special day. Jock aged 17 playing off 15 was called up to play for the Juniors in a match against Bruntsfield. Some of the regular team were away on a field trip, but despite being short of numbers, were keen to beat their keenest rivals. Big Tommy Aitchison who helped with the juniors when the pro was away prevailed upon Benny “to make up numbers”. Benny knew some of the Bruntsfield team and unlike most of these kids’ competitions as he called them, he could expect a decent game. The match teed off at 4 pm prompt so as not to interfere with evening adult games. Benny was all organised and led off the tee with a slightly show- off 3 iron which none the less soared over the hill and went considerably further than all of the tee shots Jock had ever executed with his driver. Jock was promoted to second in the order as the others were running late, and his opponent Cecil Bonnington, an extremely proficient young golfer, caught Jock who was nervous among these prodigies, and was soon 3 down. “Never mind” said the bold Cecil as they bowled down the fourth. He had briefly conversed with his team mate whose ball looked lost at the fifth, “Torquil is also 3 down to Benny and looks likely to lose the fifth, so maybe you two will cancel each other out”. Jock grinned shortly afterwards when Cecil shanked his second shot into a bunker and an unplayable lie, leaving Jock only 2 down. Cecil lost a ball at the next. Jock had a wry smile when after much searching Cecil could only find Torquil’s ball which had earlier been deemed lost. A large “T” marked in black on the ball seemed to stare defiantly out of the rough making Jock wonder why it hadn’t been discovered earlier. Jock was in his element at the short par 4 sixth where, although outdriven he pitched dead a few feet from the flag and sank the putt for a rare birdie to Torquil’s scrappy par 4. Benny and his opponent had raced ahead but then slowed at the 8th when Torquil’s ball appeared lost again. Cecil found trouble at this tricky hole also, so when the second match went through the gates to the next field where the 9th tee is located, Torquil was just teeing off. It was a fair shot up the hill but Benny was in pole position. Out of courtesy, in case either hit a screamer, Jock and Cecil waited until Torquil played his second to just short of the green and dallied a bit longer until Benny hit his approach. Rather too much turf seemed to fly up and even 240 yards back down the hill Jock could see Benny had executed a less than perfect shot. However the ball veered off to the left struck the embankment, had a Member’s lucky bounce to roll back onto the fairway then on to the green to lie close to the hole. Jock stopped watching and prepared to drive, now one up in the match. As usual he did not crest the hill like Benny or Torquil’s drives but at least Jock’s ball missed the bunker and was in reasonable shape. Cecil walked on towards his ball as Jock pulled out his 8 iron and cleaned the blade with a duster he had in his pocket, in readiness for what he visualised to be the perfect pitch and run. Jock usually had positive thoughts even if the resultant actualité was often the prequel to a dropped shot.
Jock was in his little zone about to play when Cecil came rushing back “Benny’s missing, He went for a slash in the bushes while waiting for Torquil to play out the hole and hasn’t come back!” Fearful that Benny may have ventured too far for privacy and fallen into the disused quarry Jock threw down his club and ran up to the green to join Cecil and Torquil. “I don’t know what’s happened” said Torquil. “He’s got that tiddler putt to go 6 up”. The trio commenced a search and Jock peered into the quarry but there was no sign of Benny. After 5 minutes Torquil claimed the match. Cecil who knew Benny and bit and respected his golf was naturally more anxious, as Jock was becoming, and said he would concede his match. Jock said he would run down to the Clubhouse to alert Big Tommy, and Cecil and Torquil agreed to gather all the clubs and bags and stop the matches, at least temporarily, until Benny reappeared. But Benny never did turn up.
Later that evening Jock and his Dad took Benny’s clubs and gear back to his house and broke the news to his father who immediately rushed up to the Club to join all the members and a couple of police officers in a search which lasted until light faded at 10 15pm. Police dogs had little success in tracking as it had started to rain. Days passed and the mystery grew. It was inexplicable. Benny had wandered off in his golf gear, had apparently taken nothing from his house and left his parents distraught. The rough and trees around the 9th and surrounding hillside were checked many times, no credible sightings of Benny were reported and after a while searches were abandoned. Benny was logged as a missing person. He had just turned 18, a place at Glasgow University beckoned to study maths after the summer holidays but that in time was awarded to another youth. Jock’s Dad went round several times to commiserate and console Benny’s parents. Benny’s father and his wife Marguerite poured their hearts out and said there was no trouble at home; Benny was a clever accomplished boy who led an ordinary quiet life in their semi-detached bungalow in Blinkbonny, a genteel but boring cluster of homes on a slope near to Silverfield. They were bereft. It was a mystery left unresolved.
At idle moments, or driving past the Robertson home, or duffing an approach shot to the 9th green, that strange episode would haunt him. Once he bumped into Torquil at the Students’ Union and confided that he had been preoccupied with his tee shot and leading the match one up on Cecil that he never noticed Benny after he hit his second shot and started to move toward the 9th green. Over a few pints, until Torquil burst into tears, Jock asked him to describe the events of Benny’s disappearance from the back of the 9th green in minute detail. Jock did get a bit obsessional about it all. He staggered out of the Union that night with Torquil’s words ringing in his ears. “You see Jock, I feel guilty, I played such rubbish, I don’t know why and maybe Benny thought “why bother with golf and would-be golfers?” “I feel I am the reason he disappeared.”
Years later in the period after the death of the 30’s Man aka the Duke, Jock’s best golfing partner ever, and before Jenny reappeared into his life, Jock made a bit of study of “The Disappeared” as he called them. Every week when down in Stockbridge, shopping after a game of golf, he would buy a copy of the Big Issue from the homeless vendor and read the stories about missing people and the grief they left behind. Any UK golf tournaments which were televised, would find Jock ignoring the golf and studying the spectators for Benny standing out in the crowd. After 40 years the events of that evening are still vivid in Jock’s mind. Maybe Benny was bored at his prowess at golf and his ability to put in a good score despite the occasional poor shot, the way his academic life appeared to stretch before him as if pre-planned, that he walked away from it all. Even Blinkbonny isn’t that bad.
One thing was for sure Jock knew Benny was still out there somewhere and he still kept peering at crowds looking at the tall faces for a flicker of recognition. When he was out golfing or when passing a golf course, he would pause if he saw a tall golfer of his own age to see if he would unleash that wonderful languid swing that Jock had never forgotten, but in the interim had been unable to emulate.
F. R Crowe
© May 2021
Someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the UK – Police Missing People website.
180,000 people are reported missing every year in the United Kingdom. Many are found, some are not. The oldest open missing person’s case on the books of the Metropolitan Police dates back to 1959. National Crime Agency
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