Member since 1973 – Former President, Committee Member and Finance Committee Chair
Ian Thomas is the son of a Bayswater fitter and turner who wanted to a be a civil engineer but his parents couldn’t afford to keep him at school. It’s an unlikely start for someone whose diligent overseeing of Portsea Golf Club’s finances is a high point in a life well-lived.
“Like others of my generation I started my working life with the seat out of my pants,” Ian says. “When I applied to join the ANZ bank (after leaving school) I borrowed money to buy clothes that were suitable for a prospective bank employee.”
What he did have was a great mate, Syd Thomson, a North Ringwood boy who was schooled alongside Ian at Ferntree Gully Tech. In the early 1970s, when Syd’s mother-in-law sold a Blairgowrie block to buy a new car, the Thomas and Thomson families bought it together, became tenants in common and built a holiday house that would bring them and their children much joy.
Ian (right) with Syd Thomson (left)
“Syd was a bloody good plumber who knew a lot about building,” Ian says. “I was the labourer, he was the brains.”
When looking for a golf club to join they didn’t bypass Sorrento Golf Club, rather were bluntly advised that Portsea would be a better fit. Neither has had a moment’s doubt they made the right choice. “There’s a lot of mine and Syd’s blood, sweat and tears in this place. I love Portsea.”
When Ian started playing regularly he was a 36-handicapper, a mark he whittled down to seven. “Playing golf with Syd helped, he’s got it all up there,” he says, pointing to his temple.
An albatross on the old par 5 3rd hole – driver, 3-wood into the cup – remains a playing highlight. Of course Thomson was there. “We couldn’t find the ball. Syd went up to the hole and said, ‘Here it is.’”
Having followed his brother’s advice to leave banking and become an accountant, Ian was identified by president Jack Relph in 1978 as a good person to replace Roland DeGaris as chair of the finance sub-committee. He remembers asking Relph if there was money set aside to pay off the roughly $35,000 debt. “And he said no, nothing.”
Running such a tight ship that all outstanding loans were repaid by December 1980, making the club debt-free for the first time in its history, is Ian’s proudest Portsea achievement. Not far behind was his involvement in the funding of the second clubhouse, which opened in 1993 when Syd was president.
Ian and Philip Jewell
Ian’s diligence with the club’s money didn’t endear him to everyone. He recalls one committee member dismissing him as “a petty cash accountant”, another member poking him forcefully in the chest saying a small increase in subscriptions would be too much for him. “But I wasn’t going to let the club go broke on my watch.
“I set budgets for the greens committee, match committee, all of the committees – and they were bloody tight. I just kept chipping away at it. I’d look at things in detail and sometimes say, ‘No, we’re not spending money on that.’”
New equipment for course maintenance was off limits, with Ian decreeing that either second-hand machinery be purchased or existing stock repaired. He prized governance and was appalled when a committee vote to buy a second-hand tractor was ignored and a new machine appeared on course. It didn’t happen again.
“I’m forceful but I’m always polite and respectful. I get annoyed when I see people spend other people’s money as if it is their own. It is the members’ money held in trust by the Committee and as trust money it can only be spent after all aspects of the intended payment have been examined.”
Ian (far right) playing with with Australia’s greatest professional golfer, Peter Thomson (second from the right), in the Pro-am
As someone who “is not a public person”, taking a turn as president in 1981 could have been daunting. “But I had Syd as my captain. He knew everything about golf, I knew nothing. But I knew about finances.” He admits to bias but reckons their double act as the club’s key office bearers was a winner. “No ripples, no bumps, nothing.”
The one-time junior bank teller who had to borrow to buy work clothes eventually bought a block in Rye overlooking the bay. And the blocks either side too, so it would feel a bit like the 11 acres he grew up on in Bayswater. He no longer plays, since his wife Judith had a stroke, but is very happy with the golf club that he’s loved for so long.
“It’s a marvellous golf course – tell me where there’s a better one?”
Ian (second from the left) playing with Peter Thomson (far right)
Ian was against selling land to fund the current clubhouse but supports what it’s done for the club and thinks it’s ideally situated. “I look out there and think it’s just beautiful. Awe-inspiring. It’s just magnificent.”
He cares deeply about the future, even if Judith tells him: “Don’t worry about it – you won’t be here!”.
“And I say to myself, ‘I know I won’t be, but there’s so much of mine and Syd’s blood, sweat and tears in this place, I want it to be here forever and ever.”
The strict bloke who held the purse strings with such care smiles to recall bumping into a retired greens committee person in the Blairgowrie shops one day. “He said, ‘Jeez you were tough! But now, I look back and I can appreciate why. You were tough for the right reasons.’
“He was somebody who wanted $10 and I only gave him a dollar. He was saying, ‘I wasn’t happy with the one, but one was the right decision.’ Because look at the club now.”