In a career spanning close to 50 years as a PGA Professional, Graham Warburton has been an influential figure at a host of Perth’s leading golf facilities. With Tony Webeck
In a career spanning close to 50 years as a PGA Professional, Graham Warburton has been an influential figure at a host of Perth’s leading golf facilities.
With Tony Webeck
When I was young my idol in terms of coaching was John Jacobs, the British coach who always talked about impact, that was his first thing. The only thing that matters is good impact and as long as you can get it repetitively then your swing will work for you. That’s still true today.
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Becoming a PGA Professional was always something that was in the back of my mind as a future job. I was friendly with some local professionals back in the north of England, played a fair bit of golf with a few of them and I could see that as something that I could gravitate towards. I’d always been greatly interested in swing technique and even at that age I studied the golf swing endlessly, probably to my detriment in terms of my golf. I didn’t come to Australia in 1974 with that intent and purpose, I just came to Australia to see what it was like.
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I started my traineeship with Jock Borthwick at Lake Karrinyup in 1975. I was introduced to him by an old professional called Charles Jackson who’d actually had come out from England. He could see that I was very keen and I was at a bit of a loss of what to do so he introduced me to Jock, gave me a recommendation and Jock met me on the verandah of Karrinyup one day. He asked me to go out and hit a few balls with him and he said, “You’ll do, you can start Saturday.” That was how I started.
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I went from Karrinyup to Hamersley Golf Course where Pat Tobin who was a long-standing member of the PGA who is still going today, was the Head Professional and had the lease. We taught, we repaired clubs endlessly and of course dealt with the public. Pat was a really good bloke to work for. He was very fair, he worked us fairly and was a pleasure to work for.
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Then I applied for the job at Wanneroo when they decided to enter into a proper PGA agreement Initially we were in a big shed on the driving range, just my wife and I to begin with. She would help me out on Saturdays and Sundays, out there picking up range balls with me in the 40-degree heat. Eight months after we started they built the pro shop that is still there today.
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After a couple of years I got asked to join a partnership with fellow PGA Member David Breen who had the contract to Wembley Golf Course. That was the busiest club in town then and of course it’s even busier now they’ve done some marvellous changes there.
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From there I went on to the WA Golf Club and I was the professional there for about two-and-a-half years and after that the job at The Vines came up. There really wasn’t another resort at that point and the one thing I didn’t have was experience in hospitality and resorts. We were there from before the course opened, getting everything set up, and I was there for the first two The Vines Classic tournaments.
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Two years later the job at Lake Karrinyup was advertised and after going through the interview process got the job and stayed there for the next 29 years.
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Looking back over the years I didn’t play that much golf while I was doing all those jobs. I played only casually and didn’t give much thought to it, which sounds crazy, but as I said, I thoroughly enjoyed the work of a professional.
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I do have a little regret that I didn’t do more with that, that I didn’t play more golf. But in a busy club I always found it hard. You’re working in the shop and then suddenly you’ve gone out onto the first tee and hit it and off you’d go. If I was doing it again, I probably would’ve maintained my game a little more and played a little bit more but at the time it didn’t seem like the right thing to do. I felt I did the right thing for my jobs.
• To find the PGA Professional who can guide you through your life in golf visit pga.org.au/find-a-pga-pro/
