Two Warrnambool golfers at different ends of the age spectrum encapsulate the sport, writes JUSTINE McCULLAGH-BEASY.
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EIGHTY-six years separates Warrnambool Golf Club’s oldest and youngest regular playing members.
John ‘Jack’ Bullen is a 97-year-old World War II veteran who still plays two rounds a week.
Hugo Artz is a budding 11-year-old prospect basking in his first men’s competition victory.
Together they encapsulate why golf – a sport played by more than 1.18 million Australians and has 380,000 club members – attracts players from all generations.
A Golf Australia national participation report, released in 2016, found the average male player was 56 and the average female competitor 64.
“It is a good leveller with the handicap system – an 11-year-old boy is able to play in the men’s competition and win,” Hugo’s dad Denver, himself a player, says.
Bullen, who has collected two wins in the club’s veterans competition in the past 12 months, plays off a handicap of 32.
It’s a figure which makes the golfer with 70-plus years’ experience shudder.
“I am ashamed of it,” he says with a chuckle.
“I’ve lost 24 since I came down here (from Point Lonsdale in 2013).
“I came down here on eight and I am out to 32.”
Hugo is going the other way. He’s playing off 28 and is hoping to slash that number in coming years.
He scored 48 stableford points to win Warrnambool’s Saturday C grade competition last week.
“Thirty-six points is normal and he had 48,” Bullen said of his little mate’s performance.
Bullen says it’s pleasing to see young players such as Hugo playing golf.
Inspiration at Warrrnambool is easy to find.
Players only need to look on the clubroom walls to see current world number 19 Marc Leishman’s name.
“It’s all in your genes I think,” Bullen says.
“Look at Marc Leishman, his father (Paul) is a wonderful golfer.
“(That said) my father was a shocking golfer.
“He was a left-hander and he used to bore a hole into the old wooden clubs and then fill them with lead because he reckoned that would cure his slice.
“When he finished he could hardly lift his club.”
It’s those family ties which help regenerate the sport.
Hugo has followed his grandmother Sue Wilton, father Denver and older brother Sam onto the fairways.
Bullen, a father of three, would have a hit with his late wife Betty.
“I played a lot more than she did but I only had one hole-in-one and she had three,” he reflects fondly.
“I played 2000 times more. She could’ve been good but she didn’t take it very seriously.
“If she had a bad shot she used to laugh her head off.”
Bullen enjoys the fact players of differing abilities can play together – a trait which distinguishes golf from sports he played in his youth.
“My long game was pretty wild but my short game was good but I’ve lost that now as well,” he joked.
He’s witnessed equipment changes and advancement in technology during his seven-decade love affair with golf too.
“Good heavens yes, the ball doesn’t go as far now as it used to… not with me anyway,” he says with a wry smile.
“Now they’ve got all types of flexible shafts and steely shafts. It is so much different.”
Golf has provided the Nhill-raised Bullen with a sporting escape which has outlasted his other passions.
“I’ve always been fairly sport-minded,” he says.
“I played a lot of football and did water-skiing, tennis, squash and swimming.
“I’ve got two exercise bikes. I’ve ridden them both every night for the last 35, 40 years.
“I’ve got a football knee which gives me a lot of trouble and that’s why I am trying to exercise it a bit but it’s beyond recovery.”
Bullen lined up for Wimmera league club Nhill, playing in the ruck before injuries ended his career.
“I had 14 bad knees playing football and when they got too bad, they put me at full-forward,” he says.
“There’s my first game, a broken nose, and then there was dislocated fingers, thumbs and shoulders.
“I’ve never broken a collarbone which is unusual but everything else I’ve suffered.”
The Allansford-based Hugo plays football and cricket too.
But he’s starting to focus on golf.
“There’s a lot of hard work in there too, you can’t just go out and whack a golf ball and expect it to happen,” Denver says of his son’s sporting pursuit.
“He is starting to put some practice in.
“Because we’re on a dairy farm, we’ve got a paddock just out our back door and we can hit golf balls.”
Denver says Hugo, who enjoys the long game, has played men’s competition at Warrnambool for a month after he proved he could master the distances.
“We think he goes about 200m with his driver, so he’s able to get to all the par fives bar the 10th in three shots which is the regulation, which is good going for an 11-year-old,” he says.
“The main thing is we have a good relationship when we play.
“It’s not me telling him how to play.
“He works it out for himself and I think that’s important.”
Next on the to-do-list is for Warrnambool’s oldest and youngest members, who are distantly related, to play together.
“Jack has played with Sam, Hugo’s oldest brother, and we’ve done some four-person ambrose together with Sue, Sam, Jack and myself,” Denver says.
“When the boys started to play golf, Jack’s got a cart and he’d give me his key.
“Jack would feed magpies and when we’d take the cart we’d have all these magpies.
“Jack told us the story that he has some friendly magpies he feeds as he goes around the golf course.”
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