I first met John Lister in late 1970. Along with a stellar field of Australasian players, he was in Dunedin for the first staging of the Otago Charity Classic at St Clair Golf Club. It was a week that had a profound impact on my life.
Lister, then 23 years of age, was emerging as the bright young star of New Zealand golf and a family contact had created the opportunity for me, as a 17-year-old, to caddie for the man from Timaru.
Lister had won twice in Europe that year but was headed for the US PGA Tour in 1971. In an era when Bob Charles was the only New Zealander playing in the US, Lister was considered a great hope to follow in his fellow Cantabrian’s footsteps.
Lister finished just behind the leaders that week in Dunedin, but so enamoured was I with the experience that I asked to travel with him to Hastings for the Watties Tournament the following week. He agreed, and my love of the professional golf tour was formed.
I found a way over the next two years to work spasmodically in the real world in order to caddie for Lister at the end of each year on his return home from the US. And what a ride it would be.
It was perhaps no surprise that Lister would be a successful sportsperson. After all, his father Tom was a highly regarded boxer, his brother Tom an All Black flanker and his sister Jenny a representative golfer. It was a genetic pool that suggested a promising career in sport was more than likely.
Lister won his first big tournament on home soil at the 1971 New Zealand PGA Championship (although I wasn’t on the bag that week as he had a friend who regularly caddied for him at Mount Maunganui). It was the first of 11 major titles at home where he regularly beat star-studded fields.
Throughout the 1970s a different dynamic existed in the scheduling of world golf that allowed Australasia’s best golfers to play the five or six events that were part of the New Zealand swing. Kiwi golf fans saw the likes of Bob Charles, Peter Thomson, Kel Nagle, Jack Newton, Stewart Ginn, Bob Shearer, Simon Owen and Lister as well as a selection of high-class Americans such as Tom Watson and George Archer.
Those events included the New Zealand Open, New Zealand PGA, Otago Charity Classic, Garden City Classic, Caltex Tournament, The City of Auckland Classic and one or two other events that came and went.
It was a great little circuit that came at the end of a long season for some. While lacking in serious prizemoney, the competition was intense and fans flocked to the events at a time when there was little exposure to the game internationally through television.
The first of 10 wins I enjoyed on Lister’s bag was in the Garden City Classic at Russley Golf Club in Christchurch in late 1972. Lister would come to dominate the Garden City Classic over the next few years, winning on four consecutive occasions before finishing runner-up to Bob Shearer in 1976.
It was an amazing run, given that few (if any) professional golfers had achieved such a feat anywhere at that stage. (Tiger Woods has since won the Arnold Palmer Invitational four years in a row from 2000-2003).
Apart from the shotmaking and power hitting, the manner of Lister’s victories over the Russley layout was special. I recall him defeating Australia’s David Good on one occasion after beginning the final round nine shots behind the Tasmanian. On another occasion, Lister controlled the event from early in the week. He could win from anywhere and often did.
Russley’s par 5s were the holes where Lister’s prodigious length thrived. The 2nd, 6th, 9th,13th and 16th were all at his mercy as he produced some remarkable runs of under-par scores.
One of the best shots I have ever seen came during the final round in one of his wins at Russley when he pulled a tee shot at the 16th. The ball, which ricocheted off the trees, finished on the adjacent 17th fairway some 220 yards from the green and blocked by a substantial row of pines.
Lister asked for the yardage and I can’t recall my answer, although I’m sure it was vague. He then hit a 2-iron across the line of trees that landed like a butterfly with sore feet, finishing 20 feet from the hole. Given the circumstances, it was a remarkable shot and led to yet another victory.
Renowned for his length – and that was the aspect of his game that appealed so much to the fans who were in awe of his raw power – Lister was a relatively straight driver of the ball.
If it’s possible for a golfer to have a signature hole, his was perhaps the par-5 13th at Russley. Lister would take on the tall pines on the corner of the dogleg, often leaving himself just a pitching wedge for the second.
Lister was also one of the better putters on tour. I had been fortunate to caddie for Bob Charles when he won a tournament in Switzerland in 1974 and his reputation as one of the world’s best putters is well documented. But I have often said that Lister, at his peak, was a beautiful putter of the golf ball and nearly as good.
He had a sensational feel on the greens, and with the flanged Acushnet Bulls Eye putter he so regularly used, Lister would often capitalise on the opportunities he was creating for himself.
Lister won the Otago Charity Classic on two consecutive occasions (1973 and 1974) and one of those occurred on a final day when fog embraced St Clair Golf Club. I recall a moment from the elevated tee on the par-4 15th when he called out to those below to see if the fairway was clear. Today, play most likely would have been stopped. But proceedings continued with him essentially using the voices he heard many metres below the tee to gauge the correct line to the fairway.
Lister won 10 of 25 tournaments and other events between late-1972 and early-1977. That included three in a row in Auckland, Hamilton and Mount Maunganui during the 1976/77 summer.
He won three New Zealand PGA titles but never went close at the New Zealand Open – a love/hate relationship with course set-ups for New Zealand’s flagship event working against him.
When fully on song, however, Lister was a beautiful player to watch with his tremendous power and deft touch. And the question has often been asked just why he was unable to convert his form at home to greater success internationally.
It’s a question even I struggle to answer. I caddied for him for eight months or so in America during 1979 and, even allowing for the significantly tougher opposition on the US PGA Tour, he was unable to reproduce the style of golf or brilliance he so often displayed in New Zealand.
John could be feisty, and I sometimes felt he could have benefitted from the mind gurus so much a part of the modern-day player’s entourage if they were around at the time. However, he liked to do things his own way and, even if they were available, he might not have taken the opportunity.
Lister did win on the US PGA Tour, defeating Fuzzy Zoeller by two strokes to win the 1976 Quad Cities Open (known now as the John Deere Classic). He recorded several other top-10 results during the 11 or so years he played the American tour but was never really able to play with the same freedom and panache he so often displayed at home.
One event where he performed close to his best occurred in the 1977 Australian Open against a field that included Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Hubert Green, Ray Floyd, Jerry Pate and a host of other PGA Tour luminaries. Lister led through 36 holes at The Australian Golf Club in Sydney against this quality field. He fell one behind after 54 holes and eventually tied for second, three shots behind the winner David Graham. Outside of his win on the PGA Tour it was one of his finest performances.
After walking away from the tournament scene in his late-30s, Lister is now involved in golf-related tourism from his base in Auckland. For a period after his retirement, he regularly commentated on our televised tournaments.
John has a penchant for mentoring young players and was a regular social playing partner of Lydia Ko during her amateur days. Now 71, he still plays some good-quality golf socially – his outstanding natural talent ensuring that ability is still evident.
Hence, John still plays a role in New Zealand golf and has a great passion for the game. But it has been many years since his charismatic manner graced the fairways and excited New Zealand golf fans.
Sir Bob Charles was the trailblazer and greatest achiever in New Zealand golf history in so many respects, but the exploits of John Malcolm Lister and the boost he gave to the game here can’t be overlooked.
At his best he was a dynamic, exciting and brilliant player. It’s just a shame we didn’t see it more often.
This profile appeared in the April 2018 issue of New Zealand Golf Digest.