By Michael Davis
AT Mount Osmond Golf Club, perched over Adelaide looking out over the Gulf of St Vincent, they believe in going to any lengths to get their man.
Early last year, the club lost its general manager, Mark Tan, who was successful in securing the GM’s position at Royal Adelaide.
This led to the inevitable recruitment process to replace him.
But nobody predicted it would be a 10-month, cross continent journey to find his successor.
Andrew Long, a former board member and chairman of grounds at Mount Osmond, takes up the story of the circuitous recruitment process taken by the club.
“It’s been quite a journey,” he said.
“Happily, there were plenty of applicants and some were even deemed suitable for the job. Of course, there was one who stood out and the board decided he was our best choice.
“This is where it became interesting as he was in South Africa.
“Damian Wrigley is his name and he was managing Pearl Valley Golf Club in Cape Town, a very prestigious course there. He had all the credentials that we needed plus he was also a professional golfer.”
Damian is married with a young family and they decided that a move to Australia was what they all needed.
“Of course, nothing is ever as simple as packing up and moving to another country and the immigration hoops everybody had to jump through were many and varied,” Andrew said.
Mt Osmond was required to engage an immigration agent to undertake all the communication between the parties – Damian, Mt Osmond and the Immigration Department.
“It turned into a long and convoluted process with much back and forth between us all. Damian was in the difficult position of not being able to reveal too much to anyone in Cape Town, including some of his family, until the pathway was clear.”
In the interim, Mt Osmond was lucky to secure the temporary services of Andrew Gay as its GM.
He was looking to ease out of the role at Royal Adelaide and expected to have only a month or two in the chair at Mount Osmond. A long-standing member of Mount Osmond, he slipped into the role seamlessly.
But no one envisaged that he would be ‘warming the seat’ for 10 months.
Eventually, the patience and perseverance shown by Mount Osmond’s board paid off.
Late last year, the news came that all was good for the new South African GM to take up his post at Mount Osmond.
“We couldn’t be more delighted with the board’s decision to select Damian and to keep plugging away at the process to get him and his family here,” Andrew Long said.
“Damian started on January 1 and it has been well worth the wait.”
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