Tony Rafty’s passing three days before his 100th birthday has deeply saddened the golf world.

I received an email on September 28th from good friend and Australian Golf Writers Association (AGWA) Secretary George Begg to advise Tony’s 100th birthday was approaching on October 12th.

Tony Rafty passes away three days before his 100th birthday.

However yesterday an email arrived to advise Tony had passed away just days before a milestone birthday celebration.

Tony’s passing comes also in the same year we lost another great Australian golfing legend in Kel Nagle, and who’s career was celebrated at this year’s Open Championship.

Tony was the first to be made a life member of the AGWA and it was something he was extremely proud.

When I began reporting on golf tournaments back in the late ’80s Tony was among the first to befriend me and it was a friendship I treasured.

Tony was not a reporter or photographer but a sketcher.

I recall vividly how he would sit near the front of the media interview room sketching everyone who would enter the media centre for interview and usually by the time the interview was over Tony would have completed his sketch ahead of asking the player to autograph his work.

There is a sketch he did of me one day that when I return to Australia later this year it will be a first task to locate.

Tony lived in Malabar in suburban Sydney and would attend many of the major tournaments.  Though he was not representing any news outlet organisers would afford him accreditation without a question being asked so much was his stature in Australian golfing circles.

However there was one particular occasion Tony travelled to Britain to be present at the Open Championship but then the press officer refused to afford Tony media accreditation.

Ian Baker-Finch, and the subject of a number of Tony’s countless sketches, got wind of this and marched into the media centre declaring if Tony was not afforded accreditation the then past Open Champion would be withdrawing and it would blame the press officer.

Suffice to say, Tony was afforded full press credentials.

What Tony Rafty did best – sketches of some of the game’s greats including Robert Allenby (centre) and Peter Senior (right).

Probably Tony’s biggest Australian-born golfer sketch subject was Greg Norman, and in the late 80s and early 90s when I began getting into the deep end of golf reporting, Norman was very much a frequent visitor to the media centres on the Australasian Tour.

Other greats of the game he happily sketches include Jack Nicklaus, Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tiger Woods when the American began competing in Australia.

During World War 11 Tony had served as a war artist and journalist for the Australian Army serving in New Guinea, Borneo and Singapore.  In fact, he sketched the surrender of the Japanese in Singapore and covered the release of POWs.

Tony Rafty and his many, many sketches including behind him sketches of Greg Norman and Arnold Palmer.

His considerable number of works from that era are housed in the National Library and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, and with  others held at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Tony not one caricatured golfers but politicians, other sports stars and entertainers including the Beatles and then having each of the ‘Fab Four’ sign his work and also the Rolling Stones Keith Richards (see photo).

Tony Rafty with Rolling Stones Keith Richards

His work work has been exhibited worldwide and over 15,000 of his caricatures have been featured in newspapers and magazines.

In 1981 Tony was honoured in becoming the world’s first caricaturist to have subjects appear on national stamps, with caricatures of sportsmen Victor Trumper, Walter Lindrum, Sir. Norman Brookes and Darby Munro.

Tony had such a warm and endearing nature.  He was a very kind man and would never seem to get upset or be worried or concerned.

Of course, it has been many years since Tony sat in the front row of a media centre but then when the Australian Open comes around later this year there many of us in the AGWA who’ll miss his presence.