The Other Masters
The Australian Masters was an unashamed copy of Augusta's. When promoters flew there to see what they could learn, the green jackets' advice was, effectively, There is only one Masters, piss off
A teacher from Melbourne called David Gair Inglis—who would introduce himself as “DGI’ and tell people it stood for “damn good ideas”—created the Australian Masters in 1979 as an unashamed copy of the one at Augusta.
It would be played at the same course each year—Huntingdale in the Melbourne Sandbelt—and winners would receive a jacket, this one a garish yellow.
Gair’s experience in running golf tournaments amounted to promoting the modest Box Hill Open. As he told golf reporter Peter Stone from The Age, he’d also written and produced a children’s play called “Make Me A Smile”, which was staged at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre.
“How long did it last?” asked Stone.
“One day,” replied Gair.
But Stone was duly convinced the Australian Masters had sufficient star power — Lee Trevino was coming, Greg Norman was coming, local heroes Ian Stanley and Bob Shearer were aboard — and promoted the event in his journal.
And thus the famously sports-loving public of Melbourne heard about a brand new golf tournament bearing the oxymoronic slogan, “A New Tradition”.
Apart from financial stress—Inglis couldn’t pay Trevino to attend; the players nearly boycotted when prize-money was reduced, and it took something of a whip-around to come up with $10,000 to ensure the tournament wasn’t cancelled altogether—the first Australian Masters tournament got off the ground. And made a $50,000 loss
A successful vacuum cleaner salesman called Frank Williams was approached to bail DGI’s Masters out of the financial hole, which Williams did. He’d always loved golf, had played at Sunningdale in England as a boy. He tipped in the $50,000 on the proviso that he would own a half share in the venture.
“We did it really well the second year,” Williams said. “And with my input and expertise we lost a quarter million!”
But the pair doubled down. They found money for appearance fees for superstars Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Curtis Strange. They sold the concept to national TV broadcaster, Channel Seven, who agreed to give them 24 hours of airtime. They sold advertising space to advertisers, recruited sponsors and pitched it hard to the greater Melbourne sports- watching public. And they sold it as a battle between one man, the Great White Shark Greg Norman, and the world’s greatest players.
“It was a marketing exercise, the Masters,” Williams said. “The second year we decided we were going to make it a tournament worth coming to see with a lot of overseas players. Initially everyone had treated it as a bit of joke.
“So, we spent money on appearance fees, which some say is a bad thing, some say is a good thing. But if you wanted a decent tournament, you’ve got to have worldwide ‘name’ players.”
Norman was up for that. He promoted the event by jumping out an airplane. He emerged from a Huntingdale lake in scuba gear. Whatever they asked, the Shark did. And where the Shark went, people followed. And everyone got paid.
Norman won the Australian Masters six times. Adam Scott won it. Tiger Woods won it. Colin Montgomerie had a rare win outside Europe when he finished 10-under in 2001. The 1961 U.S Open winner Gene “The Machine’ Littler won the second one in 1980 aged 50. Other winners include Ian Poulter, Justin Rose and Langer.
The tournament became so successful that Williams and Inglis visited Augusta to watch the US Masters to see what they could learn from Augusta’s green jackets. Their casual enquiries received short shrift, according to Williams.
