In the 1980s, a quiet revolution brewed at Federal Golf Club in Canberra. A ragtag bunch of kids, long socks and all, became touring pros, coaches, mentors and caddies. This is part one of the story of the club that launched a legion.
In old south Wales in the lower valleys of Swansea lies the “Ancient Borough” of Trebanos, a mile-long town of 1,711 souls which has, at its beating heart, as most Welsh villages do, a rugby club.
Yet while Trebanos RFC competes in the backwater of Welsh Rugby Union’s Division Four South West, from this modest little club in this modest little burgh have emerged dozens of British Lions tourists, Welsh internationals and provincial and junior representative players.
So prodigious a font of rugby talent is Trebanos that they’ve written books about it. One of those, Raising The Dragon: A Clarion Call To Welsh Rugby, is by a legend of Welsh rugby – and one of 83 Wales internationals named Jones – Robert Jones, who writes of his upbringing in the town:
“It was a time of innocence; we would spend every spare waking hour chasing a rugby ball around the lanes, gardens and fields of our little village, until the voice of a parent would call us in for bedtime … we didn’t have computers, mobile phones or video games – just our imaginations and bundles of energy and enthusiasm for sport.”
If ever they write a book about the disproportionate, what’s-in-the-water-down-there number of golf professionals and industry types who emerged from Federal Golf Club’s Junior Pennant teams in the 1980s, the publishers might sub-title it: Hold Our Beer, Trebanos. With a foreword by Frank Nobilo. And we shall talk more of him.
For now, consider that Federal juniors of the decade from 1982 did such things as: win the Victorian PGA; win the NSW Open; win on the Asian Tour, the Japan Tour, the Korea Tour; compete in the Open Championship, compete in the Senior Open Championship; lead the Open Championship in the first round a day after a chat with Seve Ballesteros in a practice round at Royal Troon.
Further, Federal’s ’80s babes have: coached the national teams of Singapore and Malaysia; run Golf Australia’s high performance unit; run the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship for the R&A; refereed at the Masters at Augusta National; refereed at the Masters at Augusta National when Adam Scott won in 2013; published Malaysia’s The Golfer magazine; caddied for Brandel Chamblee; caddied for Jack Nicklaus II; caddied, coached and mentored the winner of the 2015 U.S PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, Jason Day.
They won Federal’s Club Championship as juniors. They won the ACT Junior Pennant and Senior Pennant in the same year, the first time it had ever been done. And they kept on coming. And going. A plethora of Federal junior alumni from the ’80s became professional golfers, touring, teaching and running pro shops around the world.
Chris and Nikki Campbell came from Federal; both won in Japan. Dominic Wall is Regional Manager Asia-Pacific for the R&A; he won the Federal Junior Championship in 1982. Craig Carmichael won the Club Championship and was a top-20 Australasian Tour man. Scott “Scooter” Barr is from Federal; he won the Hong Kong PGA, led the Open Championship in the first round at Royal Troon in 2004 and was the one who had a chat with Seve. Barr still competes in Australasian tour events at 53 and is a prodigious Legends tour winner.
But wait, there’s more. Andrew McKenzie was an amateur when he ran second in the 2003 NSW Open at Macquarie Links. In first place? Craig Carmichael. It was the first time members of one club had been the quinella. In 2008, McKenzie won twice on the Korean Tour, the Samsung Open and the KPGA, and collected nearly a billion South Korean won (about one million AUD).
Murray Blair coached the Malaysian national team and ran the shop at Gungahlin Lakes. Andrew Welsford coached the Singapore national team and taught at Federal and Concord. Danny Jakubowski was director of instruction for Troon Golf Abu Dhabi at Yas Links Golf Club and Saadiyat Beach Golf Club. Today he’s head pro at Royal Sydney. His twin brother, Trent was a low single-figure player, has a hole-in-one at Royal Canberra and is today the Assistant Commissioner of the Australian Taxation Office.
Steve Cains is assistant pro at Yowani. Jonathan Hickman teaches at Murrumbidgee. Glen Lloyd was CEO of Queanbeyan GC. Stu Curren taught at Gold Creek, caddied for Chamblee on the PGA Tour – “had a temper on him, a bit childish sometimes; he’d start ripping gloves off and throwing shit around” according to Curren – and joined the Federal Police before winning the police national title.
Col Swatton, arguably the least naturally talented of the greater Federal GC youth brigade (even if he was a solid two-marker), took to teaching, ended up at Kooralbyn International School in Queensland and found a talented kid called Jason Day, who needed an older influence in his life. Day would win the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, and today, since reconciling after a falling-out with Swatton, has impressed in recent outings in major championships.
And the Deputy Editor at Golf Australia magazine played junior golf at Federal because his father, Vincent Cleary, was a board member behind the institution of the club’s then-progressive “sub-junior” category of membership for 12-14-year-olds. In a time when golf was doing its best to remain exclusionary – when female members were “Associates”, when self-conscious teens, if they wanted to play golf, were made to wear long, white, bus-driver socks – allowing children to play among members was considered dangerous thinking.
But Federal brought them in, nurtured them, encouraged them. Prodded them in the bottom when required. And success had many fathers. My father was one. His great mate and club GM Terry Wingrove was another. We’ll credit others in part two.
Yet the greatest inspiration for this generation of golfedrs – as it was for Australia’s claque of genuine world-class players in Stuart Appleby, Robert Allenby, Nick O’Hern, Aaron Baddeley, Geoff Ogilvy and Karrie Webb – was, of course, the Great White Shark, Greg Norman. Carmichael reckons that, in the year after Norman led all four majors in 1986, junior numbers at Federal went from “20-odd to 120”.
Frank Nobilo played his part also.
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Frank Nobilo was 22 when he became inaugural champion of the Resch’s Pilsener NSW PGA Championship which Federal hosted in 1982. And the kids of Federal GC, ever starved of top-class golf action, came out in force to see – and in some cases caddie for – Bob Shearer, Billy Dunk, Terry Gale, Lindsay Stephen, Wayne Grady, Ian Stanley, Peter Senior, Mike Clayton, Stewart Ginn, Ian Baker-Finch, Wayne Riley and Brett Ogle.
While the event never could attract Greg Norman – the Great White Shark had already leapt into the global stratosphere – he was the Australian idol. He was Golf Man on the World Stage. Golf’s Crocodile Dundee, our Australian in excelsis, as someone once wrote of Keith Miller. And a generation of golf kids followed in his wake. Scott Barr was one of them.
A long-time Asian and European Tour player, Barr was considered Federal Junior Pennant team’s fifth-best player in 1990. He says “Greg Norman was the biggest influence in my career”.
“It was the same for all of us. He was a massive figure. But I also knew all the players from watching golf, so going to the NSW PGA was like being in heaven,” Barr says.
Stu Curren, who caddied for Brandel Chamblee on the PGA Tour, was head professional at Gold Creek CC, joined the Federal Police, won the police national golf championship and today runs a tyre shop in western Victoria, says: “It was Greg who had everyone excited about playing at Federal. We all wanted to be him. Andrew Welsford still does!
“Golf back then could be hard to watch, by which I mean you didn’t get a lot on the telly. So, when the NSW PGA came to Canberra, we were all over it.”
While Norman never did get to Federal (though he did shoot 62 in the first round of the ESP Open at Royal Canberra in 1987), the local kids were plenty enamoured with Nobilo. For 13-year-old Robbie Richardson, it was Frank, not Shark, who was The Man.
For three rounds, anyway.
“I caddied for Frank the first three rounds,” Richardson recalls. “Then when he was leading after three rounds, and it looked to be getting a bit serious, my old man took over the bag.”
Dominic Wall caddied for Jack Nicklaus II. The pair had a blast, according to Wall.
“He was just out of college and starting a golfing career. Unfortunately, he missed the cut but we had a lot of fun. I still see him occasionally and have discussed our time at Federal,” Wall says. “In one round we played with Brett Ogle and Ian Stanley, and let’s just say there was not much love between those two. It opened my eyes to professional golf.”
In 1985 it was the U-Bix Classic and the juniors of Federal would wait outside the players’ lounge early in the week to see about picking up a bag.
Mark Batten, 16, caddied for the winner, Wayne Riley. Murray Blair had Stewart Ginn, and found himself on the range, catching Ginn’s balls in a sack. Next to him, dodging around and catching Ian Baker-Finch’s 9-irons? Future Hall of Fame caddie, Steve Williams.
When Ginn finished fourth, Blair found himself waiting again outside the lounge to be paid. Inside, the players were half-cut and celebrating, and peer-pressured Ginn into slinging Blair $250. For a 13-year-old in 1985, it was a motza, a genuine fist-full of 50s.
“Those pro tournaments at Federal were just outstanding,” Blair says. “It gave us a peak at life inside the ropes of professional golf. It exposed all of us – a bunch of kids, nuts for golf – to a professional tournament at our course. It was just fantastic.”
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