Supporting players: Royal Melbourne general manager Paul Rak (left) and head professional Bruce Green have been mates for 35 years.
JARROD BARNES
A cheeky young Bruce Green and his two brothers pressed their noses up against the wire fence at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club trying to catch a glimpse of Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle wresting the 1959 Canada Cup from the US.
Their grandfather owned a dairy farm near the course and the Green boys were captivated by the hordes following every shot of the Australian superstars.
Not long afterwards they were working as caddies every weekend at the club.
Just up the road, Paul Rak was still in short pants at St?Bede’s College when he heard you could make a $1.10 on Saturdays caddying for Royal Melbourne members.
Rak and Green met at the caddies’ hut in the 1960s and a lifelong friendship was forged.
Now they are front and centre of the biggest sporting event to come to Australia in more than a decade – The Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne, November 15-20.
Both men have risen to two of the most coveted jobs in the game. Rak is now the club’s general manager and Green is the head professional.
Green has been at RM for all but a short period of his working life. Rak – much to the chagrin of many – was the assistant to the general manager but told not to apply when the big job came up almost 20 years ago.
It was considered he needed experience elsewhere. Rak took the tip and headed to nearby Kingston Heath, where he stayed for 15 years while general managers rotated in and out of RM like a revolving door. About three years ago RM lured Rak back as general manager.
“Paul did not say anything at the time but I think he was a little hurt by being told not to apply for the general manager’s job back then. He has never said anything about it, but that’s typical of the bloke,” Green says of his good mate. “It was disappointing to see that he had to leave and it was very exciting for me and the golf club to see him come back. You could see how happy the members were with the decision.
“The thing with Paul is that you know exactly where you stand. Paul is one of the most genuine blokes you’ll ever come across. He’s always willing to work and to help people. He’s 100 per cent genuine and loves his job with a passion. He’s highly respected by all his staff because he takes an interest in them. He also spends a lot of time with members and understands their requirements. In a sense, he’s ‘married’ to the club. He’s totally dedicated to the golf club.
“He’s also receptive to the industry and realises the role Royal Melbourne plays in the golf industry.”
Rak says of Green: “Bruce has been back here for 33?years. The year before last he was made an honorary member. Not too many staff are made honorary members of the golf club. Green thoroughly deserved it.
“Bruce is the eyes and ears of Royal Melbourne. He knows what Royal Melbourne wants. On the practice fairway he helps members with their golf. He gives them personal advice. He is the eyes and ears for me as well. He tells me if the members don’t like the sandwiches or the thickness of the steak,” says Rak.
“He’s very generous with his time for junior golf. He’s generous with his time for people that are in a bit of trouble. He took in (former professional) Denis Denehy many years ago after Denis hit hard times. Bruce was walking through Cheltenham Park one day and saw Denis sitting on a park bench. Bruce got Denis going again, moved him into the family home and gave him a job teaching some of the older members. It probably added 15 years to Denis’ life. But that’s Bruce.
“Bruce has given his time to state golf, is an ambassador for the PGA during its centenary year (2011). Bruce is a giving person. He lives down the road 30 seconds away and he’s always here. He’s what Royal Melbourne is all about.
“We are good mates. We get on well. We’ve owned racehorses together. We probably only play golf together a couple of times a year, but I see him every day and we’ll pass information on to each other. And if you want a bit of advice, you can always ask Bruce. He’ll give the advice to you in an honest way.
“He’s a great doyen of Royal Melbourne and of the golf industry; an old-fashioned pro who has got his heart in the place. And he’s not chasing the last dollar. He’s here to give and he appreciates what Royal Melbourne has given to him.”
This is not a mutual admiration society but a respect for each other borne out of a 35-year friendship, despite vastly different personalities.
Green is naturally gregarious with a cherubic, lived-in, baby face and a twinkle in his eye.
Rak is more serious with a shock of receding grey hair and a bushranger’s moustache. He’s always immaculately dressed in collar and tie, regardless of the time of day.
The Presidents Cup is huge for Royal Melbourne. It pits a 12-man team from the US against a combined International Team and runs over four days. A chastened Tiger Woods is coming. Basketball legend Michael Jordan is non-playing vice-captain of the US team. There are five Australians in the International Team, including Melburnians Geoff Ogilvy, Robert Allenby and Aaron Baddeley. Greg Norman is the non-playing captain. The US has lost the biennial contest just once in its 17-year history – the last time it was played in Australia, at Royal Melbourne in 1998.
The two former caddies are as excited as they were when a member first asked them to carry his golf clubs all those years ago.
“We’ve known about it for three years and it felt like a bit of an anti-climax until about six weeks ago because we had known about it for so long,” Green says. “Then all of a sudden the trucks started rolling in and workmen in orange jackets, others in green, started going everywhere. With the size of the grandstands and marquees they started putting up, it suddenly became very exciting. We soon realised this was a pretty significant event. This wasn’t a case of a few rows of scaffolding and a scout tent, it was all state-of-the-art, top-of-the-tree stuff.”
Rak concedes: “It’s a lot bigger than I thought it was. I wasn’t here for the Presidents Cup in 1998 but they’re talking twice as big. There will be 25,000-plus fans here every day, and to fit them all around six matches per day is a challenge. It’s a great opportunity to re-establish the Royal Melbourne brand, which has been knocked about a bit over the last few years by the drought and the condition of the course.”
Millions of sports fans around the world will have their eyes on Royal Melbourne. Green and Rak are confident course superintendent Richard Forsyth has the layout in pristine condition and RM will have its status as Australia golf cathedral restored.
Rak says he marvels at his good fortune every time he drives into Royal Melbourne and sees the impressive Cape Cod clubhouse, built just eight years ago.
It has been an incredible journey for him – from caddie to bar steward to general manager. He had finished school and was about to embark on an accounting course when RM offered him a full-time job in the bar. “My parents weren’t overly enthralled with that after sending me to a private school. But Bill Richardson, who was the boss here at the time, said the club would continue to send me to school.
“I went to William Angliss and did a Certificate of Catering and, as the years rolled on, I worked in the bar full-time, was the bar manager and house manager. The club also sent me to do a Certificate in Business Studies, and I became assistant secretary when the opportunity came up in the office. Then I became club manager (administration),” Rak says from his superb office overlooking the course. He is responsible for 50?full-time staff plus another 25 part-timers.
“What we try to teach them is passion,” he says.
He still cherishes the life lessons learnt as a caddie. “You were 14 or 15 years old dealing with people in their 50s and 60s, who were captains of industry. They took a great interest in you. They knew what you were doing at school. It was just a fantastic environment to work in. You learnt a hell of a lot. You learnt discipline. You learnt manners if you didn’t have them already. You learnt protocol and how to play golf properly and how to respect people. One of the members, Jack Fogarty, had the distributorship for Bell’s Whisky, and he gave a few of us Christmas jobs. We used to spend most of our money getting there and back but we got to sample plenty of the whisky along the way.”
Rak agrees his career pathway was different from most but sees it as a distinct advantage. “You know that when you make decisions on people’s behalves, at least you’ve been there before and you know what to expect.”
Green hasn’t gone down the traditional route either. Incredibly, he has never had a golf lesson in his life.
“I’ve had a couple tips here and there but I learnt how to play from watching good and bad golfers. I really had no interest in the game until I was about 13 and started playing.” Four years later he won the caddies’ championship at Royal Melbourne, shooting 73 off the stick. Stewart Ginn, who went on to become a top international player, finished second.
“By the time I was 16 I knew I wanted to be a golf pro and spend the rest of my life at Royal Melbourne.”
Apart from brief stints at Victoria, Riversdale and Peninsula golf clubs, his working life has been at RM. “Royal Melbourne was in both Paul’s and my blood from very early days,” Green says.
He started teaching at RM in 1967, just after he won the first four-round event in which he played – the Victorian PGA at Waverley.
“I probably cut my teaching teeth under Alex Orr. When I told him I had never had a lesson in my life he said: ‘No one needs to know that’.”
Green became head professional in 1979 and has been there ever since. And so a friendship spawned in the caddies’ hut 35 years ago has led two humble men on a fabulous journey to golf’s greatest show on earth. Rest assured, though, it won’t change either of them.
» www.ticketmaster.com.au/thepresidentscup