It’s all about visualising the next shot, looking ahead.
To a new golfer starting to play the game, one of the nicer surprises comes when learning to visualise how to play golf shots: how the ball leaves the club face and travels through the air, which square of turf the ball might land on, and how the spin of the ball will dictate what happens next. Low shots that bounce before the green, shaped shots that bend around trees, shots you hit higher than a house.
The mental landscape of the game is a fascination for Scotsman Gordon Mclay: seeing, feeling the next shot, thinking ahead to the different scenarios like the chess player. Gordon used this process first subconsciously when teaching himself to play as a boy, then as a competitor good enough to compete in the Scottish Amateur Championship, and later working as a professional caddie on the Legends Tour.
In fact in golf terms, Mclay is a slight paradox, a hard-nosed serious competitor but who likes to trust his creative interest over repetitive practice; any hours missed on the practice range he argues are offset by his study of the mental processes required to play the game well.
“I still really enjoy the looking ahead,” says Gordon. “Picturing how the ball needs to move. We sometimes need to tell our brain what we want it to do and that’s where visualisation also helps. Seeing the shot and then relaxing the muscles and keeping it simple. I’m never one to hit ball after ball in practice like a robot, I have always loved playing.”
This love of creative play has been with Gordon from the first moment as a nine-year-old boy, sneaking on at Royal Musselburgh Golf Club with a 7-iron when the greenkeeper wasn’t looking. Today, he enjoys his games at the same East Lothian club with the very same friends, studying the undulating course, visualising the next shot.
In life of course it is much harder to predict the bounce of the ball. A motorcycle accident in 2007 would eventually lead to Gordon needing the amputation of his lower right leg in 2022 after years of pain – deterioration and arthritis – that forced him to give up the caddying and nearly took golf away from him completely.
When he lay on his back awaiting the surgery he was first hoping for an end to the pain. As for the prospect of playing with a prosthetic leg, he couldn’t predict what the future held, and if someone had told him that just two years after the surgery he would be playing in a big championship on the Old Course at St Andrews, where he had never had the chance to play before but had caddied there for Legends Tour player Steen Tinning, he would have been amazed.
The Old Course: the most iconic 18-hole stretch for many golfers around the world, hallowed ground for any Scot. Two of Gordon’s great heroes growing up, Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros, had been among the few to tame this mysterious course, both winning The Open Championship there. How would Gordon, playing with a newly configured right leg, cope with such a challenge?
Today, Gordon plays off a one handicap (‘1.0’, which means he would expect to play a par 72 course in just 73 shots). Aged 62, he presents an athletic physique, maintaining a straight posture honed from being a “fearless” forward on the rugby field at school, and suggesting a large chunk of his working career in the construction of a power station eight miles east of Edinburgh. Eighteen years he spent at Cockenzie station, first as a labourer, a scaffolder, and then later as a night shift supervisor in charge of a team of 15 men, working 12-13 hour days every day of the year for a long period, including Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, earning significant overtime that would help him to retire early; more lately to travel the warmer climes of Spain and Portugal with his beloved wife Eleanor in their camper van.
He first fell in love with golf in 1972, watching the likes of Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus on the television. His family home was just 200 yards from the wall bordering Royal Musselburgh, the sixth oldest golf club in the world.
“We were nine or 10, and I had an old 7-iron and we would sneak through the third gate onto the fourth tee, through the trees, and my friends William Reid, Graham Crawford and I would have a go. Our mothers knew we were all safe for hours, it was such a good time.”
Gordon’s father did not play because of a condition in his hands that meant he couldn’t grip a club, but he encouraged his son from the start and would love watching him. Gordon and his friends, after plenty of telling-offs for sneaking on too much, would join the junior section and he would soon win the Boys’ Championship and go on to play in ‘open’ tournaments on the finest golf courses in the region. Attending a strong rugby school, Preston Lodge High School, Gordon would also become the ‘hooker’ in the scrum opponents wanted to avoid. “Look at young Mclay, the smallest guy on the pitch tacking the biggest,” shouted the Games teacher one day, Gordon remembering the compliment ever since.
He would become a fine golfer too, reaching the last 16 in the Scottish Amateur and in his 40s he eyed further improvement as he could now take a little more time off work.
Gordon had been 45 when the accident happened, both ankles fractured, his right one “totally shattered” when a car crashed into his bike. Fusion surgery on this ankle followed and after rehabilitation he started playing again, and found a new adventure that fitted his underlying love of psychology: caddying for Senior Tour players Steen Tinning and Roger Chapman, giving him “fantastic days, and a privilege to caddie and help great players on the course”. But the walking and carrying the heavy tour bag took its toll.
“I was coming off courses in agony. The pain just got worse and worse, I was getting to the point of giving up golf. It was ruining my day to day life,” says Gordon.
Lower right leg amputation on September 5, 2022: Gordon persuaded his surgeon to do it, and for a while afterwards he describes being on something of a high, “riding the wave” of relief. Just four months later he entered an EDGA ‘G4D’ (golf for the disabled) tournament in Portugal and was delighted to win the event.
It was in his next G4D tournament near Dublin in Ireland that the sudden and real crisis unfolded. Playing poorly, fussing to himself about his prosthetic leg, one moment he went from feeling a little anxious to the next in a haze of conflicting thoughts.
Gordon says. “I can remember being on the sixth tee and I was in my stance and I just froze. I couldn’t see the ball for the tears and I couldn’t carry on with my round… I think the realisation of what I had been through finally kicked in like an aftershock. I had suddenly gone from a good place to a dark place. I felt the anxiety really badly.”
Gordon told us it wasn’t just about the finality of removing the leg and the personal change that brings, the “feeling different”; it was about his identity as a serious golfer, something he cherished without perhaps realising before.
“I am competitive, I am used to playing to a high standard, it’s who I am as a golfer,” he explains. “But when I couldn’t play like this it suddenly all felt hopeless and I wanted to get off the course.”
It happened two, three times where he could not complete a round in competition. His wife Eleanor had been a carer in her career and jumped in to help with the solution.
“Without Eleanor helping me then I don’t know what I could have done. At the next events Eleanor would ride on the buggy with me and she would calm me down and get me through the difficult time I had. Having her there was amazing. I didn’t want to let her down and not compete while she was with me.
“I’m so glad to say she is alongside me at tournaments now and even if I just catch a glimpse of her walking beside the fairway that will be great for me. She really is my soulmate and we travel everywhere together when possible, along with our dog, Meg,” Gordon smiles.
There were still some difficult moments to come. Managing his leg hasn’t been easy including in early 2024 the need for treatment of painful neuroma (growth of nerve tissue) on the stump of the leg, while a spur on the bottom of the leg also had to be removed. Gordon is also now aware that there can be triggers for the anxiety he faced on that sixth tee, but thanks to Eleanor and his refusal to give up the game that has given him so much, he has been able to press on.
Gordon has become an experienced figure in G4D events and at the time of writing in the top 50 of the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability (he is quietly determined to rise up the ranking further). He has won a number of tournaments and the name Gordon Mclay is regularly found on the leaderboards.
Gordon first discovered EDGA, the not-for-profit organisation that today runs, badges or supports 120 G4D tournaments each year, in 2015. Back then the playing circuit was in the early growth stage and at an event at Vila Sol on the Algarve there had been a public appeal for volunteers. Gordon and Eleanor happened to be in the region on holiday in the camper van and he put his hand up to help. He introduced himself to the EDGA president Dr Tony Bennett and a friendship started. It was at that time and following subsequent chats about Gordon’s interest in golf psychology that Dr Bennett, a Master Professional and former national coach, encouraged him to pursue his learning in greater depth: to make what had been an ongoing personal interest into something more concrete. Tony recommended a PGA-led three-month online diploma course.
“This was fantastic,” says Gordon. “My sense of visualisation is the key for me. I’d always known it, but this was a chance to turn something of a personal theory into something bigger.”
This change would further help Gordon in his role as a caddie at the time, building on his knowledge of the game.
Gordon adds: “And when I was really struggling along before the surgery, including managing pain and then frustration on the golf course, this all helped. It really opened my eyes as a caddie as to how much of golf is played in your mind. Tony encouraged me down this path and in recent times our PGA professional at Royal Musselburgh, Calum Smith, has also not only helped me mentally but further opened up my mind to the thought processes to be a better golfer on the course.
“You need to be mentally strong to score well consistently in golf, more so when you have a disability. You must believe it to achieve it.”
When asked if resilience is a part of the armoury of G4D players he meets at tournaments, Gordon replies: “Absolutely. The level of competitiveness and focus is very strong. These golfers find a way to play to their potential whatever their disability.
“At G4D events, there is a great feeling of competition on the one hand but also an atmosphere of respect. Though I want to play my best at all times, it is also about friendship. In golf, I love it, the camaraderie… To new golfers with a disability I’d really recommend golf for the friendships.
“I’ve also been very fortunate at Royal Musselburgh with the friends I have made. I still play with my life-long pals William and Graham who were with me when we were nine years old.”
His heroes Nicklaus and Ballesteros would no doubt approve of that picture of Gordon and his friends racing through the trees to play back in the 1970s. Mclay would actually meet Jack Nicklaus in 2019 while he was caddying for Roger Chapman at the US Seniors Open: “A moment I’ll never forget,” says Gordon.
Last year was also special when Gordon played for Europe in a matchplay tournament in Scotland against the USA called the Phoenix Cup. One of his matches would be on the Old Course, that unique arena where Nicklaus won The Open in 1970 and 1978, and Seve in 1984. Gordon was able to draw on his memories caddying for Steen Tinning, the thinking ahead and visualising the shots.
“It was such an honour to be playing the Old Course. I’d loved caddying for Steen there and was confident I could play well. I went out and shot 2-under par so that was a bit special,” says Gordon. “Everything went well and I was really quite proud at the finish. It was a very emotional moment too after all I had been through.”
In his camper van in the hotter weather in Portugal or Spain, Gordon is often listening to audio books written by golf psychologist Dr Bob Rotella. He loves listening to these. He is able to reflect that golf has given him the competitive edge and great friendships, and not even the physical and mental knocks have held him back for long.
The young lad who would sneak on is now a life member at Royal Musselburgh, and you would be hard pushed to find a better ambassador for his club, or a greater advocate for the game itself.
On one such recent trip in the camper van following the sun with Eleanor and Meg the dog, they stopped at Pedrena, Seve Ballesteros’s course in Spain. They went down to the beach where the great man had imagined a whole game ahead as a young boy, playing with an old 3-iron he had been given, like Gordon had first played with his 7-iron in Scotland at around the same age, picturing the shots.
Gordon filled a cup with sand from the beach. He thought it a nice way of remembering that most creative of all players. The cup now resides pride of place at his home near Edinburgh; to this complex golfer meaning much more than simply a souvenir.
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