Express stalwart Jock MacVicar fondly remembered

PASSIONATE, professional and a personable man – just some of the tributes being paid to Jock MacVicar who has passed away aged 83.

A stalwart of the Scottish Express for nearly six decades, Jock was primarily focused on golf, which he wrote about with accuracy and insight, and was a past president of the Association of Golf Writers.

However, Jock was also a member of our association as he also covered football and was an equally respected writer by readers, players and managers.

He built up good contacts across the game and was close to many of the top managers, including Jim McLean.

Nick Rodger says he will be a man much missed in the press tents of the European Tour.

He said: “Golf was Jock MacVicar’s life. And it was a life well lived. To the end, Jock was still filing regular dispatches to the Scottish Express. He’d been doing that, as he would gently chortle, ‘since the days of Caxton’.

“He covered his first Open back in 1962 and became as much a part of the game’s oldest major as the Claret Jug itself.

“Jock was a colleague, but most importantly, a friend and a mentor to me for the last 20 years.

“The tributes that have poured in since his passing speak volumes for a revered journalist but, most of all, a lovely man who was cherished my many. ‘Speaking to Jock was like speaking to an old friend’, said Colin Montgomerie. Plenty would agree.

“He was Scotland’s Voice of Golf. To his colleagues, he was known fondly as The Doyen. Jock’s considered, informative and engaging copy always provided readers with insight and illumination.

“He wrote with a balance and a fairness which players and golfing officialdom respected, even if they didn’t particularly agree with his observations.

“Jock was certainly built to last but even he couldn’t go on forever. The memories of a true gentleman will live on, though.”