CAN you remember what you were doing in 1987? If it’s a little hazy, let me try and refresh your memory.
You might recall that was the year the first mobile phone call was made in Australia. Bob Hawke was PM for a second term and Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his Queensland Government came under scrutiny for corruption. The stock market crashed on Black Monday, with 25 percent being wiped from the All Ordinaries. It was also a year in which gunmen claimed 15 victims in two separate Melbourne shooting massacres in Hoddle St and Queen St.
Is 1987 becoming a bit clearer now?
This might help a bit more. Kerry Packer sold the Nine Network to Alan Bond for more than $1 billion and a few months later Fairfax offloaded the Seven Network to Christopher Skase’s Qintex Group for $780 million.
In golf, Greg Norman had his heart broken at the Masters by Larry Mize’s chip-in and later that year he led a walk-off at the Australian Open when the lightning-fast Royal Melbourne greens became unplayable and the final round was abandoned. Peter Thomson said “it was a day of shame for Australian golf”. Norman returned the following day to win the championship, which saw him regain his top spot in the world ranking ahead of Seve Ballesteros.
Now you’ve got the picture.
For me, it was the last year of my teens. I had acid-wash jeans, Rayban sunnies and big hair, well a mullet actually (given the sparseness of the crop I have now, it is hard to believe). Ah, 1987, it was a great time to be alive.
It was also the year in which this magazine was first published. It proclaimed to be the first golf magazine in this country to be predominantly about Australian golf and its players. It was Golf Australia and, like so many other readers back then, I warmed to its coverage of the local golf scene and performance of players abroad.
The contributing writers back in that inaugural year read like a who’s who of the best Australian golf journalists, including the late Don Lawrence and Tom Ramsey, Terry Smith, Jack Craig and Brendan Moloney. Most of the photography came from the talented and acclaimed John Knight.
Greg Norman was the obvious choice for the cover of the February/March edition (Golf Australia was a bi-monthly magazine for several years). He was World No.1 and had come off a year where he led all four majors into the final round and captured the Open Championship. He was looking very sun-tanned, with the same flowing white locks, hadn’t taken to wearing a hat and was squinting into the sun as he sent another ball on some long-distance journey. The accompanying coverline enticed the reader with ‘Greg Norman teaches you touch’.
Amazing really that a quarter of a century later, we – that is Australian golf fans – still love to watch the Shark in action. His immense drawing power remains he is today the most recognisable Australian sportsman in history.
Only seems fitting that Norman should also grace the cover of this 25th anniversary issue, in which he figures among our ranking of the best players of the past quarter century (turn to page 60 for our full list of players).
In that inaugural issue, there was also a preview of the Australian Masters, that had begun in 1979 and how former Melbourne schoolteacher David Inglis had built it into what it was then – and still is, all these years down the track. It remains the biggest single success story in Australian golf after he lost $30,000 staging the inaugural event.
One of the photographs appearing in that article was a huge action shot of Norman showing just an expansive fairway and his caddie. You should see this young kid who’s carrying the bag for him. Locks as long and unruly as a thoroughbred at full gallop, yellow baseball cap, the shortest of white shorts, white socks, blue sneakers (yes…blue), hand on hip, legs crossed and looking suitably attentive.
It’s rather hard to recognise him as the Kiwi Steve Williams – now a whole lot richer and able to afford a haircut and better-fitting shorts – who later teamed with Tiger Woods and now carries the bag for Adam Scott.
Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s I was an avid reader of Golf Australia. I bought every issue and still have them stored in my office. They are a fabulous record of golf in Australia at that time.
Flicking through the magazines of that first year, there was one constant reminder of just how long ago 1987 actually was – the advertisements for persimmon woods, metal-spiked golf shoes (with the fancy flap that covered your laces to keep your feet dry) and Balata golf balls.
If you’re feeling old now, like me, well consider this. In 1987, Adam Scott was seven years old, Aaron Baddeley, six, and Jason Day was born in November of that year.
Having been a part of the Golf Australia team since 1996, I must say we are indebted to the loyal readers who have stuck by us for years. I get to see a lot of familiar names writing letters, sending emails and entering competitions on a monthly basis and I have even been lucky enough to meet some of you along the way. It is this loyalty to our pride and joy that has helped see the magazine survive in an intense market and grow well beyond initial expectations, especially when the knockers had us dead and buried within 12 months of the first edition.
Well, we’re still here.
For the past 25 years, Golf Australia has chronicled Australian golf – the players, the courses, the tournaments, the controversies, the equipment and the fashions – while also keeping a keen eye on the international game and its stars.
It has been a quarter century of enormous change in the game and we now look forward to see what the next 25 years will present and I hope you can stay with Golf Australia for the journey.
What have been your favourite or most memorable moments from the past 25 years in golf? Was it Tiger’s first major victory or do you go back to Steve Elkington’s great PGA triumph in 1995? Let me know what you think via email on golf@golfaustralia.com.au or via our website www.golfaustralia.com.au
For daily golf news, Tour player retweets and comment updates, follow me on Twitter at brendanjames2.