Golf Events / Bill Elliott / 20 September 2007 / Leave a Comment

Golf journalist Bill Elliott on one of the European Tour's most colourful characters

I'll miss the British Masters this week and for a good reason, my eldest son is getting married. But I'll still miss the Masters, if you see what I mean.

Part of the reason for this is that I like The Belfry, part is that it would be interesting to note how those young tyros Rory McIlroy and Lloyd Saltman fare as they take the big step from amateur to pro, partly it's because I like watching Lee Westwood play, would like to gauge Darren Clarke's current stage of emotional rehab and would even like to take in Ian Poulter's latest outfits. Mostly, however, I'll miss this event because of the man whose company owns and runs it.

Andrew 'Call Me Chubby' Chandler has been a friend for a very long time now. He was an aspiring young pro when we first met but even back then he was different from the herd, more sociable, more knowing, more fun to be around. Chubby played on the European Tour for quite a few years but he never quite made it properly. The talent was there okay but somehow it never quite gelled properly. Maybe he thought about things too much. Definitely he thought about things too much.

But if this thinking lark was a bad thing for a pro golfer to get involved with, it turned out to be the making of him when eventually he had the wit and the guts to realise that he was never going to be more than an average player and so he jacked it in. At that point he had, well, not a lot but what he did have was an awful lot of experience of what it was like to be a touring pro and what might help other aspiring pros to make the most of their gifts.

So he formed ISM, a sports management group that consisted initially of him and one other guy. Armed with a business card and a persuasive tongue he hoovered up the only pros available to him as clients, the ones the established managers didn't wish to embrace. Slowly, he put together a few small deals and slowly his reputation grew as someone who could be a decent manager.

His big break came when he spotted a young Ulsterman who he thought had what it took to make it towards the very top. When Darren Clarke shook hands with Chubby on a management deal in the early 90s neither of them realised what was about to happen. What happened of course was that Clarke took off like the star Chubby believed him to be and together these close friends began to make serious inroads into the mink-lined epicentre of the game.

"Darren was never a 'maybe' to me, " Chubby told me once. "If I have an advantage as a manager then it is that I was a player myself and I know real talent when I see it. Not only that, he had the personality and the determination. Darren always was going to be a star. Sure, I wanted to sign him up but really I just wanted to help him realise his potential."

With Clarke on board, Chubby then signed up Lee Westwood and the core success of ISM was assured. These days ISM seem to have a connection everywhere and not just in golf. Cricket, Chandler's first love (his dream was to play for Lancashire and he very nearly did), is a major part of the company's portfolio with half the England side, led by Freddie Flintoff and Michael Vaughan, on their books. Meanwhile his reputation as a serious player in the management world was enhanced hugely when Ernie Els signed up a few years ago.

By the way, Chubby did really make it once as a player when he won the Brazilian Open. Okay, it was a second division field but it still counts. The following year the sponsors in Brazil gave him a first class air ticket and picked up his expenses, the only time this ever happened to him. When he got to Rio he found he was in the best suite in the best hotel in town. Not only that but there was a magnum of champagne in the room. Naturally he opened it and as he drank the bubbles he turned on the TV and out of 160 channels accidentally hit the one that was showing his favourite band Dire Straits in concert.

"Suddenly I knew what it was like to be a champion. It was what I'd been missing all those years, " he grins when he tells this story which, in order to avoid a court action, has been slightly modified. If you ever bump into him - try the bar - get him to tell you the unexpurgated version. If he does, you'll realise why I'm going to miss him this weekend.

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