Taking tough job in stride
WHAT MAY LOOK LIKE A DREAM JOB ON PAPER WAS ANYTHING BUT WHEN MATT BOLTON FIRST TOOK A SWING AT STEERING CAIRNS GOLF CLUB BACK ON COURSE, WRITES HAYDEN SMITH
THERE are these occasional but perfect midwinter afternoons when, in fading light, a buzz builds around the 18th green at Cairns Golf Club.
Gun players yield their putters with precision, punters drink cold beer and Matt Bolton thinks he has the best job in the world.
The recent City of Cairns tournament, a popular annual event, was a fine example.
“Sometimes you do forget just how lucky you are to be working at a place like this,” he said.
But it has been far from an easy three-and-a-half years for the Cairns Golf Club general manager, an all-round sports lover whose tenure began as the 90-year-old notfor-profit organisation haemorrhaged money.
Mr Bolton had only been in the role a few months when he realised the full extent of the Woree club’s financial dilemma.
“The financial report for the year to June 2014 showed we had lost, I think, about $160,000 during the previous 12 months,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘wow, what have I gotten into here?’.”
But the damage was stemmed and now, about three years later, Cairns Golf Club is expecting to post a profit.
“We had to right the ship. It was sinking, there’s no doubt about it,” he said.
“If we continued down the same path, the golf club would have had some serious financial concerns.”
A self-confessed golf course “hacker”, Mr Bolton’s expertise lies in the committee room rather than the fairway.
A Cairns local, he grew up just metres from the Woree golf club on Skull Rd.
“As a kid I would find golf balls on the course with my dog and sell them back to the club pro for some pocket money,” he said.
Mr Bolton studied civil engineering before working in marketing roles for several prominent Cairns companies.
He was a sales manager at the Cairns Taipans from 2009-13 and also served as the franchise’s well-known game day mascot, Joe Blake.
“I was there at the coal face when they were trying to rebuild the Taipans … it was fantastic but incredibly challenging,” he said.
“There was no private owner bankrolling the franchise, which is the same thing here at Cairns Golf Club.”
He then decided to manage the Mena Creek Hotel, about 110km south of Cairns, but returned to the city after six months for family reasons.
“This job came up and I applied, thinking I would be playing golf every day and living the dream,” Mr Bolton joked.
“But every day is a challenge, it really is.”
He said the club’s financial revival partly came down to an acceptance that golf needed to “move with the times”. “We recently had some constitutional changes to get us into the new millennium, which has allowed us to grow,” he said.
“We’ve had a lot of roadblocks taken away and we have a lot more flexibility now to offer a product, or style of membership, that suits the modern day person.
“Everything we do now is a club-first mentality … ultimately the club is in a better position and will hopefully be here for the next 90 years.”
He said Cairns Golf Club aimed to attract more women to the sport with positive recent progress being made, adding that the number of social players had grown over the past three years.
“Historically, the club probably wasn’t as welcoming to social players as it should have been,” Mr Bolton said.
“Not only is it great revenue but there’s the potential these people will join the golf club.”
The father-of-two, who turns 45 next month, said Cairns Golf Club was now ready to “spread its wings”.
“Many years ago, there was a situation when the women’s committee actually sued the club ... it was that fractured,” Mr Bolton said.
“I think now we’ve moved on from that. The club is genuinely open to everybody.
“We want to throw the gates open as wide as we can ... ultimately I want to get as many players out on the course as possible.”
WE’VE HAD A LOT OF ROADBLOCKS TAKEN AWAY AND WE HAVE A LOT MORE FLEXIBILITY NOW TO OFFER A PRODUCT, OR STYLE OF MEMBERSHIP, THAT SUITS THE MODERN DAY PERSON CAIRNS GOLF CLUB GENERAL MANAGER MATT BOLTON