THROUGHOUT a strong financial career with BHP where he put his CPA certificate to excellent use in Australia and London, Sorrento’s general manager Patrick Carter always kept half an eye on a career in sports administration.
“It was just something I always wanted to do,” said Carter who grew up in Sorrento on the southern tip of the Mornington Peninsula.
On finishing up at BHP he returned to Australia to take a job with the AFL running the code in the development states of Queensland and NSW as general manager of the NEAFL – North Eastern Australian Football League.
The Sorrento Golf Club, located on the southern tip of the Mornington Peninsula.
“I am very proud of what we achieved in my time there particularly in the developing football states where we had a 10-team second tier competition which included teams from the Swans, Lions, Giants and the Suns. We broke new ground for the AFL a lot of areas,” Patrick says.
But to advance in the organisation he realised you had to be in Melbourne and he would never win a senior job over someone who had played AFL at the elite level.
Fortunately for Sorrento Golf Club, the first job he applied for back in Melbourne was for the role of finance and operations manager at the club. He later became assistant manager.
He got the job and spent five years working with GM Michael Burgess, before Burgess won the job of running sandbelt club Metropolitan. Carter was selected to replace Burgess (recently appointed as GM at RM) and speaks of his friend in glowing terms.
“I learnt so much from watching him in the role; his consistency and attention to detail in dealing with members and staff. It was a huge benefit to me when I took over the GM’s role,” Patrick says.
“It was a big leap for me to get into a golf administrative role.
“But this club is blessed in every aspect of its existence starting with the attention to detail and the superb condition it is presented year on year thanks to Shane Greenhill, our course superintendent for 25 years.
“Our professional, Mark Williamson, has been here for 13 years and runs the pro shop for us. We are one of the few remaining clubs still operating on the old model where Mark has sole responsibility for the pro shop.”
Sorrento General Manager Patrick Carter.
Sorrento is blessed, too, to have brilliant in-house staff, most of whom have been in their positions for some time.
“We pride ourselves on having the best staff of any facility on the southern end of the (Mornington) peninsula. It’s so important.”
Partrick says Sorrento is a vastly different place to the almost folksy country town in which he grew up as a boy.
“It has changed a lot and so has the golf course.”
Patrick says a lot of the credit goes to former captain and life member, Bruce Langford-Jones, for the successful changes he oversaw.
Sorrento has always been ahead of its time recognising before most others the importance of water and in the 1990’s the club built a dam on course. A second followed not that long afterwards. The club later added a desalination plant. It has been ahead of the curve when it comes to sustainability. A planned practice fairway and state of the art training facility have been strongly endorsed by the members.
“What we have down here is a real little oasis which surprises anyone who comes here for the first time,” Patrick says.
Members are happy and proud of their course and clubhouse. Many are also members at sandbelt clubs in Melbourne. There are a good few from Kew Golf Club, too. And more recently, a growing number of Sorrento members are also members at nearby Portsea. No wonder the waiting list for full-time membership is more than six years. By all accounts from the club’s affable GM, it is clearly worth the wait.
