Wednesday 12 August 2020 10:26, UK
Former Ryder Cup player Gordon J Brand has died at the age of 65 following a short illness.
The Englishman was part of the 1983 Ryder Cup side, captained by Tony Jacklin, where Europe lost by a single point at PGA National Golf Club in Florida.
Brand made that 450 appearances on the European Tour across four decades, with his sole victory a six-shot win at the 1989 Belgian Open, while his best major performance saw him finish runner-up to Greg Norman in the 1986 Open Championship.
He finished a career-high fifth on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1986, before joining the European Senior Tour - now known as the Staysure Tour - in 2005.
A two-shot win at the 2006 OKI Castellón Open de España Senior was the first of five victories on the over-50s circuit, with further success later that season at the Arcapita Seniors Tour Championship.
Brand won the DGM Barbados Open the following year and in 2008 claimed two titles in as many weeks at the PGA Seniors Championship and Travis Perkins Masters, making 196 appearances during his Senior Tour career.
Former Ryder Cup Captain and Tournament Committee chairman Mark James, who played with Brand on both the European Tour and Senior Tour, said: "He was a great source of entertainment; he had a wonderful sense of humour and was always good fun - I never saw a bad side of him at all. He was very highly respected.
"He's been a permanent fixture in the lives of so many Tour players from the late 1970s and the Senior Tour of the 2010s, he's going to missed by an awful lot of people. He had a great record as a player, but there were so many facets to his character that made him appeal to so many."
Brand was also a seven-time winner on the Safari Tour in Africa, including three victories at the Ivory Coast Open and two at the Nigerian Open, as well as winning the Dunhill Cup for England alongside Howard Clark and Sir Nick Faldo in 1987.
