Being a Scot: Sean Connery's Autobiography

How Goldfinger triggered Connery's love for golf

As the coolest of Bonds and as one of Britain's best loved actors, the release of Sean Connery's autobiography Being a Scot has been met with great anticipation. For golfers too, the title reveals news...

Whilst shooting Goldfinger in 1964, Connery began his unrelenting love for golf. As he recalls in his memoirs: “It wasn’t until I was taught enough golf to look as though I could outwit the accomplished golfer Gert Frobe in Goldfinger that I got the bug. I began to take lessons on a course near Pinewood film studios and was immediately hooked on the game. Soon it would nearly take over my life.”

Of course, this was the Bond movie that really put Penfold Hearts on the map as 007's golf ball of choice.

Connery became a world star after the release of Goldfinger and this was reflected in his newly found golfing circles. “Within a few years of Goldfinger, my golf was good enough to play against professionals in competitions,” he recalls. “I was invited to join one of Bing Crosby’s showbusiness amateur teams against professional golfers in America, which was an early forerunner of the pro-ams.” Since then, the likes of Boris Becker, Kenny Dalglish and Henry Cooper have all been Connery's golfing partners as his passion for the game, by his own admission, verged on the obsessive.

“Over the years golf has taught me much, and its implicit codes of conduct have provided me with the nearest I have ever come to a religion. A golf player is on his honour to call a shot against himself and to be considerate to those players following on behind.” As he says, “if you cheat, you will be the loser, because you are cheating yourself.”

From his days learning to play near the Pinewood film studios, to his mission to have a round in between filming, golf has played a fundamental feature of the Scot's life. But, as he would be the first to admit, if it wasn't for Bond creator Ian Fleming's passion for golf and his ardent loyalty to the Penfold Heart golf balls, his love affair for the game may never have been ignited.

Being a Scot is published by Weidenfield & Nicholson.