Gordon Jennings didn’t start playing golf until his forties. He grew up on the Mornington Peninsula beaches near Rosebud, now a golf rich haven. He was a beachcomber, not a golfer, and he would tell me stories of fishing, foraging and sleeping on the beach.
Trained as an engineer in the army during World War II, and like most veterans, those stories were left on the foreign fields and beaches. Inevitably the only time the war came up was when he would run into someone from Lebanon or Egypt. He would break out his broken attempts of their language, have a good laugh, and tell them how much he loved their country and how great the people were to the ANZAC’s.
Gordon moved to Hobart to oversee the construction of Hobart Airport. When you fly in, the little house on top of the hill overlooking the runway still stands and is where he and his young family lived. He stayed in Hobart and built his own construction and plant hire company, building hundreds of sub-divisions and kilometers of road throughout Hobart. If you live or drive around the suburbs of Hobart, there is a good chance Gordon built a part of it.
I am not sure if Gordon started playing golf because his daughter was playing or vice versa, either way golf took over, as it often does, and he joined the ranks of obsessed golfers. He got his handicap down to two (and that was back when a two handicap was a legitimate two, you actually averaged shooting two over par.)
Gordon wasn’t the only person becoming obsessed with golf; his daughter Lindy was quickly becoming the best player at the club. She soon became the best player in the State, then the best player in the Country and finally the best amateur player in the World.
Lindy Goggin was the lowest handicapped golfer in the world (+4), won nineteen Tasmanian Championships, four Victorian Championships, three Australian Championships, represented Australia for eighteen consecutive years (1970-88), won the first Australian PGA Title (1976), won the individual and teams at the Queen Sirikit Trophy (World Amateur Title) and was runner up in the US Amateur. Her son Mathew is a Professional Golfer (this is how mum’s bylines end, its kind of like when you are playing with Tom Watson and Ivor Robson would rattle off ‘On the tee, from the USA, champion golfer of the year 1975, 77,80,82 and 1983. Masters Champion 1977 and 1981. US Open Champion 1982, Tom Watson. On the tee, from Australia, Mathew Goggin’) – its hard to tee off without laughing.
Gorg/Gorgy (that is what we all called him as we couldn’t say Gordon as kids) taught me how to play golf. He taught me that you put on your best clothes, your best behavior and be respectful when you play with the Club Captain. He taught me that you shake hands firmly and look people in the eye at the end of a round. You should change into a pair of dress shoes, not runners before going into the clubhouse. Take your hat of when you greet people, go inside and especially within the presence of Royalty (all the Royal clubs have a portrait of the queen on display, and that means you are in her presence).
It all sounds outdated; some would argue it’s one of the reasons golf is unapproachable. I still take my hat off when I sit down at a table, even on my own in my house. These lessons from golf have been with me since I was a teenager and they feel important to me. Maybe they shouldn’t matter anymore, but I think it would be difficult to say we have improved at showing our respect of each other.
Gorg never got to see me play golf as a Professional. He died in a car accident the week I was playing my first event. I was on the putting green in Malaysia the day before the first round. An official told me I had a phone call up in the clubhouse and I didn’t think anything of it at the time. My dad was on the other end with the news. I was devastated. My family convinced me to play as that was what Gorg would have wanted.
My Grandfather took me to watch my first professional golf event. I had just started playing and he could see I was keen. Going to the Australian Open lit a fire in me that changed my life-I knew what I wanted to do.
He took me to a few more events; we would spend all day walking around watching players and hanging out on the practice fairway. What amazed me was that a lot of the players knew him, asking how he’d been and what was Alf up to. (Alf was Gorg’s golf buddy, I was a bit bemused at how Ian Baker Finch or Michael Clayton (Clayts) would stop and say hello.)
What I didn’t know was that Alf Gough (National Pies founder – yes meat pie legend) and Gorg used to go to lots of professional tournaments and would help the players. Some would end up staying with him during events in Hobart.
My first tournament after the funeral was the Heineken Classic in Perth. I was hitting balls on the range, trying to get back to feeling normal. Clayts walked up to me, I didn’t really know him personally, to me he was one of our good players who had won in Europe. Clayts said he had heard about Gordon passing, that he was a great man, and was sorry for my loss. It meant a lot-he didn’t have to go out of his way to say anything, but he did and it tells you everything you need to know about Clayts.
I get asked a lot why have I put so much time and effort into trying to get this project from a dream into reality. Is it a legacy project ?
In some ways it is, but not my legacy. Its about Gorg’s legacy. I never got to share my passion for the site, like he shared his passion for golf with me. I never got to talk to him about plant hire, civil construction and course construction. All things he had overseen many times in his life. His experience and advice would have been priceless. If ever there was a project Gordon Jennings Construction & Plant Hire would have been passionate about it, it would have been this one. One thing for sure, if he had of lived long enough we all would have been playing golf on this amazing site decades ago….
