FRANKLYN STEPHENSON, SANDY LANE'S CRICKET CONNECTION
 You get the feeling that Franklyn Stephenson, now a golf professional at Sandy Lane, could turn his hand to any sport he fancied and still make a roaring success of it.
A professional cricketer who turned out for Barbados, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Orange Free State, Sussex and Tasmania, Stephenson only took up golf when he was playing as a cricket professional in the Lancashire League at the age of 23.
Being the sort of multi-talented person who makes sporting mortals feel grossly inadequate, he was down to scratch in four years and in 1988 he helped to form the Barbados Professional Golfers’ Association.
For good measure, 1988 was the same year that he completed the double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets, for Nottinghamshire, the last person to do so in a first-class English season. That year he needed 210 runs in the last match of the season to complete the first double since Richard Hadlee’s four years previously and managed it easily, scoring 111 and 117 against Yorkshire and picking up 11 wickets for good measure.
The fact that he did not retire from cricket until 1997 makes it all the more remarkable that he managed to retain his professional golf status while still playing the county circuit, but he insists that the two games complement each other. “As a cricketer I was always in the market for something that would give me an edge in my game,” he says. “Playing golf helped my cricket in terms of discipline, keeping still and controlling the ball. “
“A lot of cricketers are good golfers. The mechanics are different but there are similarities. Even when I suffered leg problems and was struggling to play cricket I still played a nice round of golf. It kept me going in the quiet times when I was away from my family.”
These days, although most of his time is spent on the course, Stephenson is still an instrumental and active member of the Barbados Cricket League.
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