Simon Hobday: Quirky Character, Senior Major Winner
Full name: Simon Forbes Newbold Hobday
Date of birth: June 23, 1940
Place of birth: Mafikeng, South Africa
Date and place of death: March 2, 2017, in Ballito, South Africa
Nickname: Scruffy or Hobbers
Hobday's Biggest Wins
Simon Hobday's signature victories were on the 50-and-over Champions Tour in the 1990s, including the U.S. Senior Open. But he also won on the European Tour and on the precursor to today's Sunshine Tour in Africa.
European Tour
- 1976 German Open
- 1979 Madrid Open
African Circuits
- 1971 South African Open
- 1978 Rhodesian Dunlop Masters*
- 1978 Victoria Falls Classic*
- 1979 Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Open*
- 1981 ICL International*
- 1985 Tournament of Champions*
(*Sunshine Tour event)
Champions Tour (Senior Tour)
- 1993 Kroger Senior Classic
- 1993 Senior Tour Championship
- 1994 U.S. Senior Open
- 1994 GTE Northwest Classic
- 1995 Brickyard Crossing Championship
More About Simon Hobday
"Two balls in the water," Simon Hobday once lamented after a poor round, "by God, I've got a good mind to jump in and make it four."Always quick with a quip, Hobday's biggest win came after a journeyman career in Africa and Europe, when he finally decided to give America a try: He won the 1994 U.S. Senior Open at Pinehurst No. 2.
Hobday was brilliant through the first three rounds of that tournament, scoring 66, 67 and 66. His 54-hole total of 14-under 199 was the tournament record to that point. But in the final round, Hobday struggled — he was choking, as he made clear several times by wrapping his hands around his neck and sticking out his tongue. The chainsmoker estimated he went through two packs of cigarettes that day, at one point absent-mindedly lighting two at the same time.
"It wasn't like no one knew I was choking," Hobday said afterward. "There was no doubt about it."
When Hobday bogeyed the 15th and 17th holes, he found himself tied for the lead. In the end, he scored 75 in that final round. But, surprising to everyone, that turned out to be enough.
Hobday finished with a par, and that gave him a one-stroke victory over Graham Marsh (who bogeyed No. 18) and Jim Albus (who missed a putt that would have forced a playoff). He fell to his knees and kissed the 18th green at Pinehurst, the biggest win of his life secure.
Hobday's friends always used a common set of words to describe him, and those included offbeat, colorful, funny, irreverent, larger-than-life, charismatic. The South African publication Compleat Golfer called Hobday, "often wild, generally scruffy and always charismatic."
And sometimes they remembered to compliment his golf game, usually by calling him "an outstanding ballstriker." Hobday had a simple, compact swing that famous golf instructor David Leadbetter, early in his career, once said he used as a model.
The New York Times described him this way:
"Hobday was a readily recognizable figure to the galleries, with his generous mustache and equally generous waistline, the cigarettes that sometimes dangled from his mouth, his often mismatched trousers and shirt, and his antics."What antics? As an example, Hobday, in a bar during his days on the European Tour in the 1970s, was dared to strip naked. Hobday not only did it, but, according to author Robert Sommer's Golf Anecdotes (affiliate link), then "stood drinking while other customers gawked. When the owner suggested he at least put on his shorts, Hobday agreed, and put them over his head."
Hobday's nickname "Scruffy" came from his obvious inattention to golf fashion. He didn't care whether his outfits matched or were wrinkle-free. He once wrote a letter to a golf apparel brand requesting payment to not wear their clothes. He was known to wash his golf clothes in hotel-room bathtubs, stirring the water with his putter, and choosing as his next-day outfit whatever he happened to pull from the water first.
And Hobday never shied away from showing emotion on the course, including anger. "I get pissed off," he said. "I simply do not understand someone who hits a ball that lands behind a tree and can look at it and say, 'Well, that's golf'."
Born in South Africa, Hobday spent part of his childhood and early adulthood in Zambia. He got into farming and ranching and rubgy there, and, as an amateur golfer, represented Zambia in the 1966 World Amateur Team Championship (Eisenhower Trophy).
He was 29 years old when he turned pro as a golfer in 1969. But his first big win, one that remained his biggest until that 1994 U.S. Senior Open, came in just two years: Hobday beat Gary Player by a stroke to take the 1971 South Africa Open.
Hobday won several more times on the southern Africa circuit today known as the Sunshine Tour during the 1970s and 1980s, and he also played regularly on the European Tour in the 1970s and early 1980s. His two victories in Europe were at the 1976 German Open and 1979 Madrid Open.
His final win on the Sunshine Tour was in 1985 at the Trustbank Tournament of Champions. On the final hole, Hobday hit an approach shot that skimmed across the surface of a shallow pond and bounced up onto the green. Leading by two and elated with that stroke of good luck, Hobday celebrated by removing his shoes and socks and wading through the water hazard to reach the green.
In the regular majors, Hodbay never played The Masters or PGA Championship, and played the U.S. Open just once (missed cut, 1995). He played the British Open 10 times from 1971 through 1985, with one Top 20 finish: tied for 19th in 1983.
Aside from his appearance in that 1995 U.S. Open, Hobday never played in a regular PGA Tour tournament.
But he made 132 career starts on the European Tour with the two wins plus four seconds and five thirds. He was 20th on the European Tour money list in 1975, 10th in 1976 (when he had one win, one third, and five other Top 10s), and 12th in 1979 (one win, one runner-up, three other Top 10s). After making 15 starts in 1980, Hobday didn't play on the Euro Tour in 1981 or 1982. He returned for nine starts in 1983, but made only seven starts total over five later seasons after that.
In the early 1980s, he returned to South Africa and became club pro at Wingate Park Club in Pretoria. But he quit the club pro life just a few years later, saying, "I was alright teaching kids and beginners because they will listen. It's the 15-handicappers with bad grips who won't. Maybe if I charged them $500 an hour they would, but I couldn't so I told them to bugger off."
Closing in on age 50 and senior tour eligibility, Hobday practiced every day for a year to get ready for the U.S. Senior Tour. He earned his membership with medalist honors in the 1990 Senior Tour National Qualifying Tournament. At the time, he was just the second international golfer to earn a full Senior Tour exemption through Q-School.
He joined the Senior PGA Tour (later called the Champions Tour) in 1991, playing just about every event he could: He made 33 starts that first year, with a best finish of second. He was 16th on the money list.
In 32 starts in 1992, Hobday had 13 Top 10s but no wins or runners-up, and finished 18th on money list.
His first Senior Tour victory happened in 1993 at the Kroger Senior Classic. He won a much bigger tournament, the Senior Tour Championship, to close out the year. In addition to his two wins in 1993, Hobday had two runner-up finishes and placed a career-best 10th on the money list.
In 1994, he had two more wins — including the U.S. Senior Open — and was 11th on the money list.
He won again in 1995 at the Brickyard Crossing Championship, which was his fifth and, it turned out, last Senior Tour win. But Hobday slipped to 26th on the season-ending money list. He did not finish in the Top 30 in money after that. His last second-place finish in 1998, and he made his final Champions Tour appearances in 2002.
For his career on the Champions Tour, Hobday had 313 starts, five wins, six second-place finishes, three thirds, 28 Top 5 finishes and 63 Top 10s.
Hobday was inducted into the Southern Africa Golf Hall of Fame in 2014. He was one of several contributors to a 2016 book titled The Hole Truth (and Other Mostly True Stories) (affiliate link).
Late in his life, Hobday had a lengthy battle with cancer. Yet just a few months before his death, he still carded a round of 65 on his home course. He was 76 years old when he died in 2017.
Sources:
(Book titles are affiliate links; commissions earned)
Apfelbaum, Jim. The Gigantic Book of Golf Quotations, 2007, Skyhorse Publishing.
Barratt, Brendan. "Simon Hobday: A joker with a serious game," Compleat Golfer, April 19, 2017, https://www.compleatgolfer.com/magazine/simon-hobday-joker-serious-game/.
Brenner, Morgan. The Majors of Golf, Volume 2, 2009, McFarland and Company.
European Tour. Players, Simon Hobday, Career Record, https://www.europeantour.com/players/584/career-record?tour=dpworld-tour.
Goldstein, Richard. "Simon Hobday, Offbeat U.S. Senior Open Champion, Dies at 76," New York Times, March 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/sports/simon-hobday-died-pga-seniors-champion.html.
PGA Tour. Players, Simon Hobday, https://www.pgatour.com/player/06679/simon-hobday/career.
Senior PGA Tour. 2001 Senior PGA Tour Media Guide, 2001, PGA Tour Inc.
Shefter, David. "1994 U.S. Senior Open Champion Simon Hobday Dies," USGA, https://www.usga.org/articles/2017/03/1994-u-s--senior-open-champion-hobday-dies.html.
Sommers, Robert T. Golf Anecdotes, 1995, Oxford University Press.
