David Creamer excelled in two sports at an elite level that, although involving small white balls of similar dimensions, required contrasting skillsets – table tennis and golf.
As a golfer, he played in the PGA Cup, competed in more than 200 European Senior Tour events, worked as a head professional at home and abroad and coached on two continents.
Prior to that, David, who was born in the London borough of Ealing, was one of England’s foremost table tennis players who competed alongside two of the sport’s post-World War II icons – Johnny Leach and Chester Barnes. He partnered the former in winning the England Doubles Championship in 1964; a year earlier the latter was a team-mate when England contested the World Table Tennis Championship in the Swaythling Cup.
David also put his table tennis skills to good use during one summer by coaching holidaymakers at Butlins in Somerset and while there began playing golf in his downtime.
“I think he was a bit bored so went to the local golf club and learned to play the game,” explained Josefine, his German-born wife who travelled the world with him after they met in 1993. “He was bitten by the golfing bug and as there was no money in table tennis at that time, he turned professional in 1966.”
He initially worked for Bill Cox at Fulwell Golf Club, Middlesex, and on being elected to PGA Membership in 1968 was appointed teaching professional at nearby Finchley Golf Centre.
David experienced coaching abroad for the first time in 1969 when he worked in Spain, Switzerland and Sweden before returning home and spending nine years as head pro at Ellesborough Golf Club in Buckinghamshire.
While there David played in the 1974 PGA Cup at Pinehurst, North Carolina, competed regularly in the Association’s tournaments and finished fifth in the 1977 Kenya Open.
David followed up by serving Bryn Meadow Golf and Country Club in south Wales as head professional for four years and then opening and running the David Creamer Indoor Golf School in Bristol from 1983-87.
That proved his final port of call in terms of working in the UK and posts as either guest or head professional followed at clubs in Switzerland and Germany.
In addition to his club professional roles, David continued to compete and won the Swiss PGA Central Championship in 1986 while working at Davos Golf Club in the Swiss Alps.
More success followed with victories in the German Senior Professional Championship in 1994 and the German PGA Open 12 months later.
David has become eligible to play in European Senior Tour events by then and was the first to compete in more than 200 tournaments. He won one of them, the Energis Senior Masters at Wentworth in 2000, and was runner up six times, including the PGA Seniors Championship in 1994 and Lawrence Batley Seniors in 2002 when he was defeated by Neil Coles in a play-off.
David retired from playing competitively in 2007, a year after being made an Honorary PGA Member and, having spent the winters in Florida since 1994, he and Josefine continued to live there until 2019. They always returned to Europe during the summer months, however, firstly to Frankfurt in Germany and then in 2008 to the house they had built in Switzerland.
David is survived by Josefine, to whom the PGA extends heartfelt condolences on her loss.