Golf Vic Vol 60 No 3 2019

Photography: Darren Seiler Merbein Golf Club is one of the first recipients of grants for a number of clubs around Victoria, with the rebuilding of its clubhouse and upgrading of multi-purpose facilities the culmination of a decade of toil to rescue the club. BRUCE MATTHEWS reports. Local member Melinda Binding couldn't sit back and idly watch when drought-ravaged Merbein Golf Club fell on hard times a decade ago. The mother of two pitched headlong into a mission and rallied others behind her to save the club that, frankly, doesn't possess the same resources and membership strength of the five other golf clubs in that area in Victoria's far north-west corner. Mark Bamford, Golf Australia's Golf Development Senior Manager for Victoria, doesn't mince words when describing the initial one-woman campaign to rescue her beloved golf course and club. "If Merbein Golf Club didn't have a Melinda Binding, it wouldn't be here today. Obviously, it's not that simple but it took her drive and passion as part of that community to realise that the club had to change," he said. Binding is secretary of the club, founded in 1926, that also has a volunteer- manned Australia Post outlet, with 120 post boxes, that serves the Cabarita community. Aside from full-time work for an Indigenous employment agency in Mildura, 12 kilometres away, she completed training courses that qualified her to run Swing Fit sessions for women on a Wednesday afternoon and MyGolf for juniors on Sunday. As a former Regional Development Officer of the Sunraysia area, Bamford has witnessed this amazing one-woman crusade from close up. "We wouldn't need some of the resources if every club had a Melinda Binding. She's a visionary, but she hasn't left it to herself and now has a team around her at the club," he said. Merbein is one of the first of several projects to be funded by the Andrews Government's pre-election commitment last year to upgrading golf clubs around Victoria. A $200,000 grant will allow work to start mid-year to rebuild Merbein’s multi- purpose clubhouse and post-office facilities and provide other amenities for use by the community. The State Government’s commitment to this funding is part of the Pitch In – Grow Community Golf campaign, which also incorporates other projects around Australia that have been allocated funds from Sport Australia grants. Golf Australia and the Australian Golf Industry Council (AGIC) commissioned the Pitch In campaign to assist in lobbying various levels of government for support for community-based golf throughout Australia. The AGIC is made up of Golf Australia, the PGA of Australia, ALPG, ASGA (Australian Sporting Goods Association), GMA (Golf Management Australia), AGCSA (Australian Golf Course Superintendents Association), The Society of Australian Golf Course Architects and Public Golf Facilities Australia. The AGIC, chaired by PGA Australia chief executive officer Gavin Kirkman, brings together the peak bodies in golf to work together as a united voice to look at key issues and challenges to help grow the game. "As a collective group, we try to work on key projects and the Pitch In campaign highlights community golf facilities projects," Kirkman said. "Where other sports are getting good funding to update their facilities, whether they're sporting fields, locker rooms at football clubs, tennis courts or cricket clubs, golf seems to miss out. "There's a perception that we're asset- rich, but unfortunately we're cash-poor. They feel sometimes that we're an elitist sport but at the end of the day I'm proud that our game reaches everyone. It's a blue-collar sport as well as a prestigious sport at private clubs. So, we're pitching in as an industry to say we need funding to update some of our facilities around the country. And we're challenging some of the MPs at the moment to see if they will commit so that we can get some projects on the go." For the first time, golf officials lobbied politicians during the Federal election build-up in a bid to emphasise the values of the game and the fact that golf clubs are and can be valuable community hubs. "We've sat back as a sport and we've had good advice that we have to get in front of our MPs to get our message out," Kirkman said. Golf is in a fight for use of public land, coming under pressure to protect land such as Elsternwick and Kingston Links courses that councils and residents want to reclaim for housing or public space. Kirkman explained that the industry has to change the modelling of these public- access and council-owned courses. "It could be golf in the morning, it could be a football oval in the afternoon. We have to be progressive and open-minded," he said. Golf Australia Special Projects Senior Manager Cameron Wade said the game was continually fighting the perception that it was financially well-off and therefore doesn't deserve funding. “Golf makes an economic contribution to Australia of $3.5 billion but at least 50 per cent of all clubs in Australia are under some financial distress. Golf facilities are more than just places for playing golf. They are community hubs that include a place for weddings, birthdays, funerals, small business conferences and charitable events. The people who benefit from the facilities extend far beyond those just using the golf course,” Wade said. There's no better example than Merbein, where its dedicated secretary, a 22-handicapper in the Saturday comp, recalled the emergency meeting in 2010 that kick-started the community campaign that ultimately saved the club. “The new building will be more accessible and inclusive to current users of the golf club, post office and wider community. It will help boost our membership and allow for a new post office and a clubhouse that includes a function room, kitchen and toilets,” Binding said. “We know people want to use the clubhouse for functions and other activities, but at the moment we don’t feel so comfortable doing that because it’s not up to the standard people would expect of a function room. “We’re also looking to expand in an environmental way too, so there could be walking tracks on the golf course one day or an improved area that groups use for yoga.” Golf Victoria 23