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PADDY HANDBURY By Mark Harding
Golf Victoria – January 2008

Imagine if you owned two of the best golf courses in Australia, both of them in beautiful coastal settings where tourism abounds with luxury accommodation and fine food and wine all part of the deal.

You'd play a fair bit of golf, right?
Not so Paddy Handbury, the bloke who pays the bills at Moonah Links on the Mornington Peninsula and The Sands Torquay on the Bellarine. A few days after the interview for this story, Handbury was teeing up for his first game of golf in more than three months.
It's not that he doesn't love to play, just that controlling a couple of golf clubs, sitting on numerous other boards, holding various community positions and running his own group of companies tends to take most of the 24 hours a day in most of the seven days a week.
Handbury, 52, describes himself as a farmer, which is a little like Tiger Woods describing himself as a golfer. Both descriptions are accurate but they only tell a fraction of the detail. He is Chairman of the Ambia Group of Companies, which owns Collinsville, Australia's best known Merino Stud, and Chairman of the Handbury Group, whose biggest business is currently exporting cattle to Japan. He has substantial other rural holdings in South Australia and Victoria and a glass recycling business.
The Handbury Group is now also the leading player in Victoria's golf tourism industry, through its two golf course and residential developments and the associated Peppers Resort Hotels.
And yet Handbury was unknown in golf circles until the turn of the century. He says he got into the sport because of "a chance meeting with some Malaysians" while he was watching his sons play cricket at school. The investors were doing a development at Torquay but with the downturn in the Asian economy they needed a partner.
The school, it is worth mentioning, was Geelong Grammar, where Paddy Handbury is still a board director. He is also Geelong's reputed richest resident and the nephew of Rupert Murdoch.
It's hard, then, to escape the thought that there might have been very little "chance" about the cricket match meeting from the Malaysians' viewpoint. Their pitch certainly struck a chord. "I thought it sounded like a good sort of development," Handbury said. "Torquay is a place that is on the move and I had always loved the idea of playing golf so I thought it would be nice to get involved. And one thing led to another."
The recent opening of Peppers The Sands Resort, a 112-suite resort hotel, has taken The Sands Torquay to a new level. The Stuart Appleby designed golf course is part of a 400 house and 200 townhouse residential property development which has done well enough to convince Handbury to say yes when a second approach was made by a second investor in 2004.
This time it was not to build a new development but to assist a struggling existing one.
Handbury agreed to buy a controlling interest for a reputed $10 million and take over as chairman of Moonah Links Pty Ltd and Golf Australia Holdings Limited. But his decision came only after a thorough examination of the finances and with a recognition of the synergies with his other interests.
The Handbury Group has given Moonah Links a complete management overhaul. "We are very happy with the way it has gone," Handbury said. "Obviously there was some sorting out to do when we got involved. Golf is hard in Australia. You have got to be very diligent and as creative as you can, so you can make sure you are controlling your budgets and create interest for people to play on your golf course.
"The hotel (Peppers Resort), which is obviously an integral part of these operations, is running really well and we have lifted golf rounds by 25 per cent. Whether that is us or just time with the maturing of the club and courses, I don't know. But we have done some good things to make people want to play there."
One of the good things Handbury has done to make people want to play there is to join forces with the PGA and the Australian PGA Tour to stage the Moonah Classic on Peter Thomson Open championship course from February 21-24 in 2008.
The tournament replaces the old Jacob's Creek Open in South Australia and is co-sanctioned with the Nationwide Tour, giving Australian golfers their chance to crack the big time in the US.
The tournament has lots of the synergies that Handbury likes to seek in all of his interests. It nurtures his genuine desire to do something for up and coming Australian golfers but it also serves the purpose of bringing international attention to his courses.
And the free admission strategy, he hopes, will bring numbers to the Mornington Peninsula and his course at a time when summer is still on and the region is still at its best despite having finished its peak holiday period.
Just as importantly, The Moonah Classic, with the best of the US and Australian up and comers, will be shown on the Golf Channel in the US and through Asia, which Handbury sees as a growing market with which he wants to align his companies.
It is a business decision but there is also plenty of passion evident in his voice. "I have a belief that all the best golf tournaments should be played on public access golf courses like Moonah Links so the people we are trying to inspire to play golf can then go and play on the same golf courses they saw the pros play," he said.
"We are very blessed in this country to have the number of great golf courses we have got – we just need to get more people out playing on them. That is part of my aim for this tournament and that's why we will continue to host the Australian Open at Moonah."
Although Golf Australia has signed a three year contract for the Australian Open to be played in Sydney, Handbury says there is no doubt that Moonah will get the Open back again.
"We are guaranteed another three and possibly another two after that. National Opens have got to be played on courses that any Tom, Dick or Harry can go and have a game on because that is how you are going to generate people's interest in golf," he said. Handbury said he understood the reasons why Golf Australia signed with Sydney because they wanted to rebuild the Australian Open after the tournament's reputation had taken a bit of a hammering. Included in that hammering was the criticism Moonah Links received as a penal course for players and a remote one for sponsors. They are criticisms Handbury rejects and he says they were more a product of a difficult time for Australian golf.
"I am keen that when it comes back to Moonah that the Australian Open is in better shape than what it was the last time it was there. And I hope the organising bodies running it are in better shape, which I think they will be.
"By that, I mean all the organisations in golf – Golf Australia, the PGA Tour, the PGA – so that Moonah Links doesn't get caught up in the mudslinging that went on last time, which was more about personalities than the golf course, to tell you the truth."
The Moonah Classic has one certain benefit over the Open – the young, hungry golfers seeking a ticket to the US PGA Tour, will be so grateful for the opportunity that they won't be slagging the difficulty of the course or the distance from Melbourne. They'll just be happy to get a game.
So will Handbury, who will definitely make the time to play in the Pro-Am before the tournament. A 15-handicapper, who laments that he has an 18-handicapper's game, he will for that week at least set aside his many other interests to practice what he preaches. He'll be inspired by watching the next wave of world golf and he'll be proud of his role in developing it.

BREAKOUT

The Moonah Classic from February 21-24 will have two major differences to the last tournament conducted at Moonah Links, the Australian Open.
First, entry for spectators will free and second, the course will not be set up to be as tough for players.
Ben Sellenger, PGA Tour CEO, said the fact that the tournament was not the national open allowed more flexibility in setting up the course for scoring. "I don't think the greens will be quite as quick," he said.
Sellenger said the pathway to the US offered by the co-sanctioned tournament made it an exciting event for players and for spectators. The Classic winner is virtually guaranteed a place in the top 25 money-earners on the Nationwide Tour and top five finishes also provide a strong start for golfers to make the top 25 and earn a place on the 2009 US PGA Tour.
The third event on the 2008 Nationwide Tour schedule, the $850,000 Classic is part of a two event ‘down under swing' following the HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship. Over the last five years, the Nationwide Tour relationship has been a Godsend for players like Euan Walters, Jarrod Lyle, Paul Sheehan, Gavin Coles, Stephen Bowditch, and Paul Gow who have been able to take advantage of the co-sanction to win a place on the US PGA Tour.
Last year, the Jacob's Creek Open, which is being replaced by the Moonah Classic, was won by US pro Scott Sterling. Sellenger believes that result adds spice because more US Nationwide players will be likely to make the trip in the knowledge that an early win can open doors for them too.
And while the $850,000 prizemoney is already one of the largest prize pools ever offered on the Nationwide Tour, the way the Aussie dollar has been performing against the US dollar in recent months, it might be even richer.
The free admission policy has been set to encourage many of the late holidaymakers still in the area at the end of summer to come along and enjoy top class golf. Organisers are still talking to various charities about gold coin donations.
Another feature of the tournament will be the promotion of Mornington Peninsula local businesses and tourism, especially the wineries and food produce for which the area is famed.
Paddy Handbury said he was also keen to get a women's forum happening. "We just want to get as many people involved as possible. We are keen to make it a good fun time for everybody – players and spectators."

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