By Kent Gray
It’s a good time to be David MacLaren right now.

Last week the Staysure Tour chief executive officer traded in his suit and tie for a caddy bib and shorts at steamy Coffs Harbour Golf Club as his 23-year-old daughter Meghan captured the Women’s New South Wales Open for her maiden Ladies European Tour title.

This week the proudest Dad in golf is back in business mode at the 2nd Sharjah Senior Golf Masters and just as (and justifiably so) chuffed with the progress of the Staysure Tour as the circuit formerly known as the European Senior Tour prepares for it’s 2018 season bow.

A year ago the Englishman turned up to Sharjah Golf & Shooting Club having inherited one of the toughest sales jobs in golf as the new boss of the embattled over 50s circuit, replacing Andy Stubbs. Leading players, Italian Ryder Cup star Costantino Rocca the most vocal among them, were openly critical of the lack of (particularly early season) playing opportunities but MacLaren soothed fears by calmly seeking time to ease into the role and get his new house in order.

He’s over delivered on his early promises too – securing a first ever title sponsor for the European seniors in UK-based over 50s travel insurance provider Staysure as well as tagging no fewer than five new events onto last year’s schedule to bring it up to a tentative 20 events.

Tristan Jones / LET

While MacLaren was happy to loop away in the background in Australia last week, he’s the focus of all the early plaudits in Sharjah.

Said Ryder Cupper Barry Lane, a five-time European Tour winner and winner of six Staysure Tour titles: “David MacLaren has the Tour moving in the right direction and I think he’s doing a fantastic job.

“It was a great move by [European Tour supremo] Keith Pelley to put him in charge. David has fresh eyes and a fresh mind. He’s put his life and soul into the Staysure Tour and it’s been an amazing success.”

South African Chris Williams, the defending champion this week, was just as effusive. “David MacLaren is doing an excellent job as head of the newly named Staysure Tour. He’s a good communicator and he seems to have created an ideal relationship with the players, sponsors and spectators. He appreciates that there is a need to give something back to the sponsors who support the tournaments, particularly in regard to the Pro-Ams.

Related: Williams ready for Sharjah encore

“Having Staysure as the sponsor of the Senior Tour has certainly elevated things. It’s the first time the Senior Tour has had a sponsor and it has certainly given the Tour more credibility and a more solid financial standing.”

For his part, MacLaren insists the Staysure Tour is still very much a work in progress. But he’s pleased to have secured Staysure and delighted they will also be naming sponsors of one of the five new events – the revival of the flagship PGA Seniors Championship scheduled for Aug. 2-5 at The London G.C. in Kent. As well as the other new tournaments earmarked for Denmark, South Africa, Moscow and Spain, he’s also keenly anticipating the Senior Open’s return to the Old Course at St. Andrews in late July as a profile booster.

“While it is very easy to paint this as a huge rosy and encouraging picture and I think it is, I wouldn’t ever want to minimise the work that is required to make sure we maintain that momentum,” said MacLaren.

“Everyday brings a new challenge and you realise in this type of role that every single tournament, both new and existing, requires a lot of attention and a lot of respect and a lot of hard work. Just because we are able to create new events doesn’t mean we can’t spend just as much time making sure that our current events are happy events with happy sponsors.

“At the same time, the great thing for our current events is that they have seen growth and also obviously seen we’ve been able to bring in a title sponsor for the tour and that just gives everybody confidence. That confidence permeates through from sponsors to promoters, to staff, to players to spectators.

“But yes the progress, I guess, has been even more rapid than I could have hoped for and I think that is a testimony that everybody has brought into the strategy.”

But lets forget business for a moment and reflect on Meghan’s glory as she outlasted rookies Casey Danielson (USA) and Marita Engzelius (Norway) and Spaniard Silvia Bañon for her first victory in just her 11th LET start. It was no fluke of course – she won two titles on the LET Access Series as well as the developmental tour’s order of merit in 2017 and previously secured the winning Curtis Cup points as one of her final amateur acts in 2015. Still, it was clearly a very sweet moment for proud parents David and Mary, the latter a former Irish international who is currently playing the Spanish Senior Amateur.

“You just never know with golf and whether it is your daughter or it is somebody on the Staysure Tour, golf I think is the most incredibly unpredictable sport,” said MacLaren.

“If you take Meghan, she had gone out to Australia on the back of a very good first year as a professional, so she was looking forward to year two, goes out to Australia with a lot of confidence and promptly misses the first two cuts in the first two events. In the third event she’s 99 percent certain to miss again by a shot as well and things change and she ends up making the cut by a couple of shots, finishes 50th or something and it just seems like it is momentum, but very gentle momentum.

“She said, if only she’d known two or three weeks previous what was about to happen, then it would have been easier to deal with the time when it wasn’t quite going as well as she expected, but that’s golf.”

The final round, when Meghan lead by as many as four, was a rollercoaster for daughter and dad.

“The other thing that interested me about last week is I’ve never seen her play golf like that before, and as an un-objective father I can’t remember seeing anybody playing golf like that before and therefore you got into this mindset where it just looked like she was going to win by six, seven, eight shots. And then, what always happens in golf, just something, sometimes it’s dramatic but sometimes its imperceptible, and the whole thing tightens up.

“She was never six or seven shots ahead but that was what it looked like she was going to be and then all of the sudden that became three or four, and then all of the sudden it’s only two shots. And then of course, I dunno what her mindset was, I can only talk about mine, but you’re thinking about all sorts of things. So for her to then get over the line, the immediate emotion is not elation at all, it’s just relief [laughs] and then eventually it becomes huge pride in what she did. So yeah, it’s been quite a rollercoaster.”

It is, indeed, great to be riding the MacLaren train right now.