Life member since 2016
Haywood Richards was 40 when Portsea Golf Club entered his life. That it became a veritable second home is apt, given how much ‘Taffy’ and his family have done for their club, and all that it’s given them in return.
Taffy’s earliest years were spent in the valleys of South Wales where his father was made redundant from the tin works after World War II and on principle refused to accept the dole. Family values have forever been Taffy’s north star.
Five Richards siblings emigrated by boat, with two girls born in Australia. They docked in Sydney on February 7, 1960 when Taffy was 12 and spent their first three years in Bunnerong Migrant Hostel, an entrée to the multiculturalism of their adopted home.
Taffy attended South Sydney Boys High, became a Rabbitohs fan, and made lifelong friendships with Greek kids he met at school.
He wagged often and was “a dropout of everything”. As a teenager, Maroubra Beach was his world. What Taffy loved most was sport – playing or watching. One day, at an oval near the hostel, he happened upon someone hitting golf balls, picked up an iron and hit his very first shot. “Well, scuffed it along the ground!”
He dropped out of a dental technician apprenticeship because soccer training was more appealing and became involved in the local Baptist church because mates played soccer for them. He was taken in by the evangelical appeal of Billy Graham.
“I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual – I don’t apologise for that.”
At 20 an elder at the church who had become a mentor told him, “We’ve got to do something about you Taffy – you can’t keep dropping out.” He was called up for army service in May 1968, initially as a prospective officer – until he declared that he wouldn’t be going to Vietnam and possibly getting killed for something he didn’t believe in.
“But I am a partly-trained dental technician,” Taffy told them. Three years later he was fully qualified (“automatically got two stripes on my arm”), was posted to Singapore and a 25-year career in the army was in full swing.
Sport was a constant through his various postings; at a nine-hole course near the Borneo Barracks outside Toowoomba he played golf. “I’d get to work an hour early, hit golf balls, play a couple of holes at lunchtime, finish work and practice again.” A strong middle-distance runner, he loved training and the self-esteem that improvement brings.
A phone call opened a new door – to the School of Army Health with a promotion to Captain. In January, 1987 Taffy, wife Rachel and their children arrived at Portsea. At an Australia Day cocktail party in the officer’s mess, they met half a dozen Portsea members. “You must come up and play twilight with us,” they said.
And so a love affair began.
“They made us feel at home from the start. And that’s what I love about this club.”
After a two-year stint in Canberra as the training development officer for health services, Taffy told his superiors he wanted to return to Portsea. They refused, he threatened to leave, was told not to be selfish, so signed off by telling them that after 25 years he wanted to be doing what he loved – and Portsea was where he’d be doing it.
“It’s quite an emotional journey for me, I’m passionate about this place,” says Taffy, who at 45 found himself working for Bill Branthwaite in the pro shop on $10 an hour.
Having been asked to join the committee he soon became captain. An encounter at the first Portsea Pro Am he oversaw underscores that Taffy is no pushover when a woman from the PGA marched into the clubhouse and asked, “What have you done to my tournament?” (Taffy and the match committee had scheduled some of the pros to tee off in the morning so they could attend Robert Allenby’s afternoon wedding).
“Next thing her job was being advertised, I applied and got it.”
For three years in the late 1990s he was a PGA coordinator, running pro ams at clubs throughout the state. Lessons learnt were brought home to Portsea, where he hails Norm Mallett for setting the principles of running an annual event without financial risk to the golf club.
“I’ve had two mentors in this golf club – Norm Mallett and Jack Carr. The rest I’ve learnt from experience. I’ve been in conflict with Norm and Jack too, don’t get me wrong. But there’s conflict and there’s conflict.”
Rachel and Taffy
Some see golf as an escape from family, for Taffy and the wider Richards’ clan it has been something to enjoy together and enhance bonds.
They’ve been good at it too; Rachel is a multiple winner of the women’s club championship, foursomes and mixed foursomes and has served on the Women’s Committee and as ladies pennant manager. Grandson Campbell won the Gordon Beany Junior Trophy and was D grade champion, both in 2019. Another grandson, Jarrod, was junior champion too.
All the grandkids have worked as “cart boys”, in the pro shop and/or hotel, while granddaughter Ruby worked at Moonah Links. Taffy and Rachel’s daughter Bronwyn is another pro shop graduate who spent time at Commonwealth, then Eagle Ridge and is now assistant general manager at Moonah Links Resort. This swells Taffy with pride.
And then there’s grandson, Charlie Robbins, the winner of Australian Ninja Warrior in 2019. Charlie tackled every obstacle wearing the same flat cap as Taffy and his extended family, who were cheering wildly from the sidelines. Charlie started in the Portsea pro shop too with Taffy giving thanks to the pros who helped his early golf. He now has his Tour card.
Young Charlie Robbins
“His ability to focus and learn to take one step at a time,” Taffy says of what’s made Charlie a professional golfer. “One shot at a time – he used that in Ninja Warrior. One obstacle at a time Charlie, get this one out of the way before you tackle the next one. Playing golf is the same thing.”
Charlie winning the Australian Ninja Warrior Final in 2019
For Taffy, Portsea’s great strength is the family values that underpin it. It aligns with the valleys he grew up in where cousins were treated like siblings and families looked after not only themselves but their neighbours too. The golf club he found at 40 has given him this and more, and he couldn’t be more grateful.
“I don’t believe in heaven and hell. It’s all in here,” he says, pointing to his heart. “I say to my kids, you live forever in other people’s hearts and minds. That’s family. And this club made me feel like family.”