Golf

Having first played the game at Denham at the age of six or seven, during the first year of John Sheridan’s 52 year reign as Club professional, qualifying for the Open championship at St Andrews in 1970 was the undoubted peak of achievement. This was in the same year in which he represented England in the Home Internationals at Royal Porthcawl and scored his second victory in the President’s Putter at Rye. In his favourite competition, he was only the second player to take part in 100 matches.

The Putter brought one unusual claim, as recorded in the Society’s History. “There have been five holes in one since 1920, almost exactly in line with the generally accepted odds of 10,000 to 1 but, much against the odds, two of them have been by the same person, Donald Steel, nineteen years apart”.

To square the circle, Steel had holes-in-one against him during matches in both the Amateur championship (1976) and the English championship (1965) - the 11 th on the Old course at St Andrews and the 10 th on the Red at the Berkshire, spectacular choices for such a feat.

In his other favourite competition, the Halford Hewitt, Steel and Charles Lawrie formed the most successful partnership in the history of an event played annually since 1924. They won 36 matches out of 38 for Fettes, the first 30 off the reel. With at least 320 foursome pairs representing 64 schools every year, there have been several thousand partnerships.

In the English County Championship final at Woodhall Spa in 1972, Steel won the deciding match at the 20 th hole for Berks Bucks and Oxon against a future PGA champion who was playing for Yorkshire.