BRENDAN MOLONEY
THE removal of Barry Humphries’ name from the main award at this year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival because he offended some members of a minority group is a sad sign of the times. Humphries was never a golfer although his father, Eric, was an esteemed member of Riversdale in Melbourne. The crime of the son, in the eyes of those who disqualified him, was that he made disparaging remarks about trans-gender people and asked how many toilets were needed to cater for them. In this branch of humour, Humphries has form. At a show in the 1970s he posted the following sign in the foyer: “Handicapped toilets located on sixth floor. Please use stairs.”
Back in those days, the handicapped found him amusing and were not easily outraged. If Humphries has a fault, it is that neither he nor any of his alter egos have shown much interest in golf. Imagine Sir Les Patterson addressing the R&A on etiquette or Dame Edna advising Royal Sydney’s associates on fashion and grooming.
Golf, once noted for its humour, needs someone like Humphries. There was a time when faced with a surfeit of invitations to tournament functions and annual dinners, players, officials, golf writers and anyone else interested would base his or her RSVP on who was speaking. At the top of the list in the 1980s were Liberal Defence Minister Jim Killen and his Labor political foe and great mate Fred Daly. This wonderful, intelligent and witty double act used to spark off each other and send everyone home happy. Alas, they are now gone, Killen in 2007 and Daly in 1995. Also gone (2005) is Campbell McComas, who conned thousands of us over the years with his impersonation of a crusty Scottish laird or a visiting golf official who insulted the hosts who had invited him to speak and complained bitterly about not being given a club tie and bottle of wine, almost to the point of being booed, before removing his wig and padding. This dramatic denouement was usually greeted with shocked disbelief followed by thunderous applause.
Another I miss a lot is former rugby league player and golf writer Darrell Fazio after whom the handicap section of our annual championship is named. Knowing he had heart problems* Faz planned his own funeral and at the end of the service in Cootamundra in 2003 everyone was asked leave the church before he was carried out and join his sister in singing Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye on the steps. It was not until his coffin went by that we realised that he got the last laugh. Mounted on top was a spring loaded hand waving back at us.
Another fine Fazio memory is his account of Bob Hawke as PM addressing a group of kids at a Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation function.
It was after Newton’s accident and a drunken Sydney tabloid journalist in the audience kept lapsing in and out of consciousness and interjecting with calls of “You beauty, Hawkie” and “You bloody tell ‘em”.To protect these young innocents, Newton had to throw him out. “It was marvellous to watch,” Faz said. “He had him in a quarter Nelson.” Henry Longhurst (1909–1978) is also sadly missed. Cambridge educated and, in chronological order, Sunday Times golf writer, MP for Acton in west London during WWII and a pioneer television golf commentator. One of his many enduring lines came on black and white TV when a player accidentally knocked his ball from the tee at address.
After a pause timed to perfection he said: “And now in clubhouses across England some fool at the back of the room will say: ‘That’s one.’” Longhurst was a friend and admirer of Peter Thomson who once had to rescue him when he froze half-way up the ladder on a BBC commentary tower.
Perhaps this is where some of it rubbed off on our five-time Open champion who was just as intelligent, at least as quick and not afraid of heights. He once had a hole-in-one playing with Dallas Brooks, the Governor of Victoria, at Sorrento GC on the Mornington Peninsula. Asked many years later if the Governor had been surprised by the ace, he replied: “Not really. I think he was expecting it.”
They don’t make them like that anymore. Instead, we have a new breed of selfproclaimed comedians who aren’t funny and sack a legend of the comedy world because they don’t like what he is saying. Now, that is a joke. * Faz would have enjoyed the irony of this and the dark humour of his own demise. The writers decided to give honorariums to him and Don Lawrence for their work as secretary and president respectively of the Australian Golf Writers Association. Lawrence opted for a dozen bottles of Scotch and Fazio got a new bike because he was training for a charity ride. The president, a heavy smoker all his life, survived the Scotch and Faz died on the bike. Amen.