Golfer Colin Montgomerie: My grandfather invented the Penguin biscuit and Blue Riband in Glasgow

The Open Championship has been hotly contested this week leading into an exciting weekend of golf. Away from the greens at Royal Troon, the topic of conversation at the clubhouse has been dominated by possible sightings of Harry Styles around the course - “he was definitely there on Monday, didn’t stay for very long”.

Not one to be upstaged during the week of a major championship, veteran golfer Colin Montgomerie has swooped in to give the golf world some food for thought.

In an aside during a conversation with Rick Broadbent from The Times for a feature interview, Montgomerie offers a bit of surprising family history that connects him to confectionary in Glasgow. He states that his grandfather invented the Penguin biscuit and the Blue Riband.

Here’s the exchange as it is reported in the feature: “Montgomerie moved to West Yorkshire when he was eight because of his father’s job in biscuits, and was tutored by Bill Ferguson at Ilkley Golf Club. Both his parents were captains. Over a cup of coffee he offers me a wonderful family heirloom.

“My grandfather invented the Penguin biscuit,” he says. “And the Blue Riband.” More biscuit talk ensues and it turns out James’s job with Fox’s Biscuits came with four season tickets to Leeds United. Montgomerie remains a well-informed fan and devotee of Argentine eccentric Marcelo Bielsa, who took the club into the Premier League. He even bought one of the giant buckets that the club sold in honour of the manager’s favoured means of watching matches.”

Penguin biscuits were first introduced by William Macdonald & Sons in Glasgow in 1928 from their factory in Hillington where they were made for over 30 years alongside YoYo, Munchmallow and Glengarry biscuits.

They became a McVitie's brand when Macdonald joined with McVitie's and Price, MacFarlane Lang & Co and Crawford to form United Biscuits in 1964. Production moved to a factory at Tollcross in Glasgow in 1969 where it continued until the manufacturing unit closed in 2021.

Colin Montgomerie puts his grandfather at the heart of a famous Glasgow story. Things get more interesting with the connection to the Blue Riband. This was first launch in 1936 by Gray Dunn, another of Glasgow’s biscuit producers, who also produced Breakaways. That seems to rule out Colin Montgomerie’s grandfather being William Macdonald himself - perhaps some other local biscuit innovator who worked on both development projects.

Born in Glasgow in 1963, Colin Montgomerie moved to Yorkshire with his family when he was four years old due to his father James being appointed managing director of Fox’s Biscuits - there really are a lot of biscuits in Monty’s family tree. James Montgomerie was club secretary at Royal Troon for 11 years, overseeing two Opens, with a connection to the course that spans over 60 years: “I grew up with golf. For many years my father played before me and I have two sons and I encouraged both of them to find their own level sports-wise” he told Today’s Golfer.

“Colin eventually seemed to fall into golf, playing at Ilkley GC in West Yorkshire where I was captain in 1979 and my wife was ladies captain the following year.

“Troon has a third course which used to be known as the Children’s course – it’s now the Craigend – and Colin and his brother regularly played on that with my wife. Colin learnt to play on there from an early age, four or five, before I moved down to Yorkshire for business. He’s an honorary Royal Troon member and always enjoys coming back.”

Colin Montgomerie has talked extensively about his links back to Glasgow but this appears to be the first time he has claimed two local biscuit creations for his family. Remember that the next time you P-P-P pick up a Penguin.