Simon Hobday was known as Scruffy, for his distant acquaintance with the reasonably stylish attire favored in his calling. He loved night life, though his workday often began when the sun rose. He was famously irreverent in a pro sport not exactly known for unconventional types.
Hobday, who died on Thursday at 76 in the Durban area of his native South Africa, was a leading player on the African and European pro golf tours and the United States senior tour, the winner of the 1994 United States Senior Open and an outstanding ball striker.
But he was remembered more as “a larger than life character,” as Selwyn Nathan, the executive director of the South African-based Sunshine Tour, said in confirming his death.