Bobby Locke: The dark life of the golfer banned for being too good

Darkness enveloped him. In 1969 he was arrested for drink-driving. Then there was the incident with painter Big Boy Ndlovu, whose work on Locke’s apartment block was deemed below par. Big Boy asked for 220 rand for his services, but Locke refused to pay. Words were exchanged, Locke pulled a gun and shot Big Boy in the shoulder.

He was done for attempted murder, paid a fine of 120 rand and had his gun licence suspended for six months.

In a Sports Illustrated piece from 2001 a friend of the family spoke about Locke’s new-found casual cruelty towards his wife, Mary, and, worse again, the physical abuse he visited upon her. “He couldn’t think straight,” said the source. “He wasn’t rational any more.”

In early March 1987, Locke, 69, was admitted to a nursing home in Johannesburg. He was diagnosed with meningitis, fell into a coma and died the following day. The tributes were effusive. Most focused on the storied first half of his life rather than his tragic second act.

Mary and daughter, Carolyn, remained loving to the end, which came in 2000 in the home that was once Sandwich but which they’d renamed Bobby Locke Place.

In a final twist to a horrific story, Mary, 80, and Carolyn, 40, planned a grisly end – a suicide pact. Having grown fearful for their own safety in a once salubrious area that was now rife with crime, they became reclusive, amended their wills, arranged for their dog to be put down and for his ashes to spread on their grave.

They were discovered dead in bed, holding hands after drinking champagne to wash down tablets they’d been gathering for months. “I just want to be with Bobby again,” Mary had said to her neighbours for some time. None of them could have known that it would end this way.

Locke is remembered not for the husk of a man he became after his near fatal accident or for the horrible fate of his nearest and dearest, but for his greatness on the golf course. His victory in 1950 will get a mention or two this week. The other stuff? Not so much.

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