Life - Simon Says

The new Tournament Director of the Omega Dubai Desert and Moonlight Classics has come a long way from picking up litter at golf’s oldest major.

- Kent Gray

IT’S SUNDAY AFTERNOON at the 1987 Open Championship and an audacious 15-year-old, armed with a ‘Quiet Please’ paddle and an unfettered teen spirit, ducks under the spectator ropes at Muirfield. Suddenly the penultimate group of Nick Faldo and Craig Stadler have a new roving marshal.

“No one said a thing as I strode up the middle of the fairway for the last nine holes as Faldo went on to score 18 consecutive pars to win the championship,” says Simon Corkill of his plucky, self-administered promotion after serving numerous less glamourous roles at previous Opens including that of litter attendant. “What a way to witness history in the making.”

Indeed. The tale from the 116th Open, where Faldo would claim the first of his three claret jugs, gives an insight into the character of the man now responsible for the delivery of the Omega Classics: the European Tour’s now 30-year-old Desert Classic and the Ladies European Tour’s Moonlight Classic which will be played under a new Pro-Am format, and floodlights, from May-1-3 on the Faldo course at Emirates Golf Club. Like his Australian predecessor David Spencer, Corkill is a staunch guardian of the game’s traditions but clearly doesn’t mind taking a gamble now and then either.

Born in the coastal Merseyside town of Crosby, educated at famed Rugby School in Warwickshire before graduating from Bristol University, Corkill’s love of a sport, and particularly golf, meant his career path was almost predestined.

“I worked at a number of Open Championships when I was a child and student picking up litter, working on scoreboards and running the merchandise outlets. Eventually I got a break with IMG and I have never looked backed.”