Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Peter Alliss RIP

  • 06-12-2020 11:22am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭


    Love him or hate him, this man was the voice of golf for me and a whole generation growing up. Really saddened to read of his passing today:

    https://www.bbc.com/sport/golf/55204070


«1

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Ah like Motty and Murray Walker he was there for us as children and adults, quintessential to the presentation of the game to the masses.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭PropJoe10


    I loved him, had an amazing turn of phrase. Offended many along the way but he was an original. Loved his commentary partnership with Alex Hay back in the day. I believe he was commentating on the Masters only last month.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,089 ✭✭✭Happy4all


    Said it like he saw it. Liked him.

    RIP


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,066 ✭✭✭bigtimecharlie


    Memories of the Open, 4 days of coverage, he made it worthwhile watching.

    RIP.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,782 ✭✭✭DeanAustin


    Been watching golf since the late 80s. Alliss was an integral part of that and such a wonderful man to listen to. Made you laugh, made you think and had you come away from watching the tv feeling a bit better about life and loving the game a bit more. What a gift.

    I don’t know what he was like as a player as it was well before my time but if he was a fraction as good at playing golf as he was at talking about it, he must have been great.

    An incredible commentator, a huge part of my life during major golfing weeks for so long. Very sad if sadly inevitable because of his age.

    RIP


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 18,559 Mod ✭✭✭✭slave1


    Very very sad news, thought he looked fierce shook when I saw him doing the BBC commentary of The Masters last month, mind you I only saw him once a year for The Masters and looked forward to his ramblings and prose, even the non-golfers in the house would know of him.
    For me, himself and Ted Lowe were The Voices, no other commentators will ever come close.

    a7fcj4np0p7sppvhvaqv


  • Registered Users Posts: 13 Happy Gilmore 2020


    Remember vj Singh hitting a 9iron at Augusta, he says "that looks a bit heavy", it lands 2 feet away he says"but perfect, just like Kate winslet" :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 213 ✭✭patob


    Very sad news of the passing of the voice of golf, heard him commentating on the Masters only last month from home. He sounded poorly at the time. Credit to the BBC for letting the great man continue to the end. So many memories of witty comments and asides as the camera panned away from the golf. Great memories his pro celebrity series with Trevino, Miller playing with many celebs such as Terry Wogan.
    Great Tweet from John Cleese this morning that he could cope with the end of the world if Peter was commentating. RIP Peter.
    https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1335552501630767109?s=19


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,577 ✭✭✭✭Mantis Toboggan


    Very sad news hard to believe he's dead.

    RIP

    He'll be missed :(

    Free Palestine 🇵🇸



  • Registered Users, Subscribers Posts: 47,247 ✭✭✭✭Zaph


    Too many commentators these days, in all sports, feel that they have to be talking all the time and only about what's on the course/pitch/circuit/whatever in front of him. Peter Alliss' meandering musings on what people were doing on the beach at Troon or some wildlife in a tree at Augusta brought a whole new dimension to the game and sucked people in whether they were golf fans or not. He'll be sadly missed. RIP


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 20,611 ✭✭✭✭FixdePitchmark


    He was amazing - extraordinary skill to talk for so long about golf, by the way he was a fantastic player also - and extraordinarily modest about it. He would give it the odd nod at times , "I could play a bit too you know".

    Some of his other golf / tv work was fairly groundbreaking and it brought golf to the masses , pro celebrity golf and Around with Alliss. He did tv lessons in these too.

    I used to also watch the "British Open" as some of us erroneously called it, for hours on end. It is an amazing thing to talk for what, 4/5 hours - now there must be 7/8 of them covering what May 3 or 4 would do. I guess that was the issue - you couldn't talk about golf for that long - so there had to be variety , imagination , a story and Peter was incredibly gifted - and always on an edge of controversy or crossing a line.

    Peter - was of the establishment , respectful of the game - but he still had the ability to laugh at it all too - the absurdity of golf and it isn't really life and death after all.

    Thanks a million Peter - you made a massive impact on so many.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,131 ✭✭✭KaneToad


    When Zach Johnson was putting for the Open:

    "Wife Kim looking on. She’s probably thinking, ‘if this goes in, we’ve got a new kitchen’”.


  • Registered Users Posts: 20,611 ✭✭✭✭FixdePitchmark


    KaneToad wrote: »
    When Zach Johnson was putting for the Open:

    "Wife Kim looking on. She’s probably thinking, ‘if this goes in, we’ve got a new kitchen’”.

    He was outrageously out of date towards the end - it kind of made him more charming for me. :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,023 ✭✭✭✭Joe_ Public


    Remember one time, dog of a day, an unshaven Thomas Bjorn, woolly hat and raingear, big red face on him - "like a tugboat captain who's been too long at sea." Wonderful voice and delivery, will be sadly missed.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,316 ✭✭✭Tilikum17


    Loved listen to himself and Alex Hay.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,332 ✭✭✭Arthur Daley


    For those of us who only watch once ot twice a year he was great to listen to. Was wondering if he made it to the Masters this year, fair play that he got another one in.

    It is the same in snooker the commentators talking throughout the action. I don't really blame the commentators as I think they are conditioned into it/expected by producers to not leave long pauses between comments. Willie Thorne before he died said rolling commentary was expected now for partially sighted audiences.
    Anyway it was a skill of these old masters to know when to let the action do the talking.


  • Registered Users Posts: 596 ✭✭✭crusier


    Best commentator ever, RIP


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,842 ✭✭✭downthemiddle


    One by one they die with nobody to replace them.
    Seventeen over par is a good age to reach.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭PropJoe10


    Tilikum17 wrote: »
    Loved listen to himself and Alex Hay.


    They complemented each other perfectly. Alex was another great man.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,088 ✭✭✭RikkFlair


    Sad news, end of an era. My favourite commentary of his.



    "Would somebody go and stop him, give him a large brandy and mop him down" :D

    RIP


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,155 ✭✭✭tritriagain


    Check out his speech on his hall of fame induction on youtube. A class act . Golf has lost on of its few characters.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,460 ✭✭✭omerin


    Always enjoyed listening to him and Alex. Heard his last commentey and he didn't sound in great health.

    Not the greatest fan of golf but when he was on he made it entertaining and his personality shone through, arguably more then the professionals


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,803 ✭✭✭Mysterypunter


    Excellent commentator and entertaining storyteller. Also won 31 tournaments as a player. He was a fan of countdown and said that he got aroused watching Carol Vorderman on it. He thought to himself, that's not bad, a seven letter word. RIP


  • Registered Users Posts: 127 ✭✭AOH77A


    I have very fond memories of watching pro celebrity golf from Gleneagles.


  • Registered Users Posts: 738 ✭✭✭Dayor Knight


    RIP Peter. First golf book I ever bought was by Peter Allis and a photographer whose name I do not remember.
    An easy going gentleman he was.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,235 ✭✭✭BrianD3


    A sad day indeed, I have fond memories of watching The Open on the BBC from when I was a young kid up until my late thirties, he was indeed the voice of golf. However with the way golf has disappeared from the BBC, I have heard very little of his commentary in recent years.

    Even when the BBC and Sky were both showing live coverage of the Masters, I remember thinking that times had changed, that I preferred the sky coverage (sacrilege) and that maybe Alliss should bow out. The BBC couldn't/wouldn't compete and Alliss would never in a million years have moved to Sky. If the BBC would have spent the money and kept showing live golf with an updated presentation AND Alliss doing his thing, it would have been epic.

    Unfortunately all the legendary commentators from before the internet/sky sports era and with their own distinctive styles are now dead, sick or ancient. I see that John Gywnne (part of the Holy Trinity of Darts commentators) has been diagnosed with bowel cancer, he is at least having surgery on it which is a positive sign.


  • Registered Users Posts: 48,742 ✭✭✭✭Wichita Lineman


    He will be missed. I could listen to him for hours. In fact I often did I suppose. RIP.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,552 ✭✭✭DJIMI TRARORE


    Peter and Bill Mclaren were the 2 voices of BBC sport thru the 80s and 90s,always enjoyed him waffling on about anything but golf ,half the time he was on. probably the last of the old school


  • Registered Users Posts: 213 ✭✭patob


    Nice interview with Shane O'Donoghue I remember from earlier this year. Shane was friendly with Peter from his BBC days.
    https://twitter.com/ShaneODonoghue/status/1335725114973966336?s=19


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 5,234 ✭✭✭PropJoe10




Advertisement