By Rob Willis
A video presentation at the Drummond Golf 50th anniversary awards event in February began with a quote from famous businessman, investor, and philanthropist Warren Buffett.
“Somone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago,” Buffett offered.
The words were obviously carefully chosen by those tasked with charting the history of an organisation which from humble beginnings, from a seed planted by a man with vision and foresight, then taken forward by a group with business and marketing acumen, but more importantly a love of golf, has evolved into a golfing retail powerhouse.
When the first Ray Drummond Golf Shop opened in 1974 in Bendigo, few could have foreseen the growth over the next five decades, to where Drummond Golf boasts 50 stores nationally to be Australia’s biggest golf retailer, by quite a margin.
Ray Drummond grew up in Sydney, was a professional golfer by age 17, before being involved in a car accident in 1955 that left him with severe spinal injuries. He rarely played golf until invited to play in 1974 by a friend, a game that would revive his passion.
Drummond, who passed away in 2020 aged 84, opened a Ray Drummond Golf store in Bendigo that same year, and the rest is history, with the 50th store recently opening in Booragoon in the Fremantle area south of Perth.
Mark Abeyaratne, who became CEO in 2002, along with brother Ravi skilled in club fitting long before it became popular and almost essential, the pair having a major impact on Drummond’s success, growth and expansion.
“In the 1970s golf off course retail was all but non-existent,” Abeyaratne began. “Ray had a store in Bendigo, Sharpies were a golf retailer in Sydney and the Hole in One serviced a good part of Melbourne.
“Ray was a true visionary as he was prepared to expand. He did this with Phil McKinnon, who in my opinion was the business brain. Ray was great at sales and marketing, Phil was the full package.
“I first met Ray in 1980 as a customer and then in 1984 when he offered Ravi and me jobs.”
The newest Drummond Golf store in Booragoon, WA.
The brothers politely declined the job offers, with Ray’s stores in the north and west of the state, rather they worked for Phil McKinnon and Rick Fitzpatrick in the southeast of Melbourne, closer to their club making and fitting client base, before being offered and accepting a franchise in Gippsland in 1986.
Ownership of Drummond Golf, which had 11 stores at the time, would then change hands in 1989 with Vic Ruth taking over, followed by a rebrand a year later.
Aware of the potential and with a vision to expand beyond the Victorian border, Abeyaratne, along with brother Ravi and future Board Member and Chairman Jonathan Madgwick, made approaches to buy the business.
“I think our first approach was in the mid-1990s. In 2002 with the help of Bruce Green and Richard Hatt we were finally able to get Vic Ruth to the table to seriously discuss a purchase.
“I convinced Vic Ruth and our partners, Ravi, Bruce Green, Richard Hatt, Jamie Cooke, Jonathan Madgwick, Tim Lewis and others, that we could open another 38 stores over a 12-year period.
“The first three new stores opened in 2003 at Osborne Park WA, Northmead NSW and Hoppers Crossing, Victoria,” Abeyaratne recounted.
Jamie Cooke, Head of Product for 13 years until 2015, before taking over as Drummond Golf CEO from Abeyaratne when he retired, is another to have a long association with the organisation and a considerable influence on the business.
“I joined Drummond Golf in Bendigo in1992 as a retail staff member and three years later in 1995 purchased the franchise in partnership with Chris Wilkinson, who still owns the store to this day,” Cooke said.
“In 2002 with Mark and Ravi and a small group of shareholders we purchased the franchise.”
At the 50th Anniversary Drummond Golf Awards night, Brett Ogle (centre) with Ravi Abeyaratne, Mark Abeyaratne, Jamie Cooke and Jon Madgwick, men instrumental in the growth and success of Drummond Golf.
While Drummond Golf continue to grow and prosper, there were challenges along the way, with franchisees mirroring the struggles golf in general was facing, before an unlikely saviour resulted in a golfing upsurge.
“From around 2008 particularly post the GFC, we noticed a decline in golf participation.
Club memberships had fallen below 400,000 and golf clubs were struggling. Participation in golf was around four percent of the population, by 2010 over 50 per cent of the golf clubs in Australia were struggling financially,” Abeyaratne took up the story.
“This pattern continued for nearly a decade with the occasional peak followed not long after by a trough. Margins and operational costs continued to be a challenge as we could see store profits in decline.
“Following the GFC many of our smaller suppliers were either struggling or had closed shop. In 2009 we enlisted Rick Fitzpatrick to help us set up our own distribution, not in competition to the major suppliers but to source stock at peak selling times that a group of our smaller suppliers provided.
“Then came Covid. I’m reminded in April 2020 we were worried about how many franchisees would survive. By December 2020 golf participation was on a steep trajectory up and has continued ever since.
“We estimate that over eight percent of the population consider themselves as golfers today. Regional and struggling metropolitan golf clubs have had a surge of new members with premium clubs now looking at significant waiting lists.
“Female participation is on the increase as well, still below what is required or what it should be, but many more younger women have taken up the game,” Abeyaratne said.
Cooke credits a collection of capable people within the business, in management, at Board level and amongst the staff and franchisees for navigating the challenges and playing a key role in Drummond Golf’s success.
“Drummond Golf to the best of my knowledge is the only full franchised golf retail business in the world,” Cooke said.
“Whilst we have significant shareholding in 10 stores, they are still run as a franchise business with a managing partner with ‘skin in the game’ in every store. That means from a Head Office perspective our entire business is about servicing the franchisees. We assist them with the day-to-day operations, training and the like.
“When we acquired the business in 2002, we had 12 stores based in Victoria. In the nine years to 2011 we opened 37 new stores around the country, this was primarily due to Mark’s hard work as CEO at that time.
“Critical to mine and Mark’s success in leading the business has been to have two strong independent Chairman in David Mattingly for the first 10 years and Jonathan Madgwick for the last 12. Through the 22 years we have also had Richard Hatt, Tim Lewis, Chris Morgan and Ravi serve as Board Members.
Mattingly, a marketing icon, became the inaugural Chairman when he joined the board in 2002.
“David was responsible for the recruitment of Brett Ogle as the face of Drummond Golf but also drove the inception of our Premier Partner (PP) Supplier Program, which contained a relatively small group of key suppliers. We have maintained a fierce loyalty to the Premier Partner program to which I think all the partners see great benefit,” Cooke added.
With the 50 stores, 23 Big Swing Golf franchises and potential for more, whatever they are doing, they appear to be on the right track, with golfers making Drummond Golf their number one choice for equipment and apparel.
“Our commitment to the customer experience is probably what also differentiates us from our competitors,” Cooke continued.
“The absolute key to delivering the supreme customer experience is the commitment of our franchisees. I think we’ve been a consistent choice because we’ve been consistent ourselves.
“It would be fair to say in the early days our marketing revolved purely around price and product however over the past 10 or so years we have made a conscious shift to make our marketing more than that.
“Customer service, MiMatch club fitting and the Drummond Club have been key pillars in the Drummond Golf model for a long time.”
From where it began, to where they are now, pioneers in the business now passed on such as Ray Drummond, Vic Ruth and David Mattingly, would be proud of where Drummond Golf finds itself today.
“I am sure Ray, Vic and David are looking down at us and saying wow,” Abeyaratne said.
Big Swing Golf
Big Swing Golf, indoor golf, real fun and fast, has introduced golf to some, provided a golfing alternative to others, while bringing more men, women and juniors through the doors of the Drummond Golf stores of which they are a part.
“The introduction of Big Swing Golf in 2014 started to help the franchisees and by 2018 was making a meaningful contribution,” Cooke explained.
“Back in 2013 the golf industry was quite stagnant, and we were looking for ways to amortise high rent and wage costs. Mark floated the idea of creating an indoor golf business that could run in the evenings when the retail store had closed, thus Big Swing Golf was born.
“We travelled extensively through the UK and USA looking at whether anyone had made the concept work. Whilst there were quite a few golf simulator businesses we couldn’t find any who had blended the concept with retail.”
The simulators were implemented into the existing Drummond environment, however it became evident that the bright retail lighting didn’t create an ambience suitable to the evening entertainment concept.
Big Swing Golf needed to become its own brand rather than just an offshoot of Drummond Golf and in 2017 Rob Oppedisano was appointed as the CEO, setting about creating what is now, as they say, ‘indoor golf, real, fun and fast’ in 23 venues.
“As (Oppedisano) quite rightly says Drummond Golf is a retail shop and Big Swing Golf is an entertainment venue. With the high demand there is an argument to say we don’t have enough golf courses. That said, it has opened up great opportunity for us in our Big Swing Golf venues,” Cooke said.
A sentiment backed up by Abeyaratne.
“Our Big Swing Golf venues are booming, justifying our investment over the last ten years,” he said.
The first Ray Drummond Golf store in Bendigo, Victoria.
Club fitting – MiMatch
Fitting has been a key component of the Drummond Golf business for better part of 40 years, kicking off with ClubFit in 1991, before rebranding and through technological advances, advancing in more recent times to MiMatch.
“In the 80’s Mark and Ravi, with the help of Phil McKinnon, embraced and established the fitting culture,” Cooke said.
“Mark was the franchisee in Traralgon in the 90’s and with the help of a young university student by the name of Tim Lewis, created a computerised fitting system called ClubFit.
“Whilst we still own the ClubFit trademark, we re-branded the system to MiMatch around 12 years ago. Ironically, Tim Lewis was one of our original shareholders when we purchased the franchise business, and he remains part of the shareholding group to this day.”
The future
With 50 stores and approximately 530 staff Australia wide, and with plans for further expansion in the not-too-distant future, Drummond Golf continues to thrive.
“From a Drummond Golf perspective, we have a great opportunity to expand into a few undeveloped territories and will aim to open 10-12 new stores in Australia over the next three to five years,” Cooke revealed.
“In addition, we are also looking at a potential New Zealand expansion.
“For Golf in general I think all stakeholders, golf clubs, retailers, wholesalers, etc, need to continue to challenge convention and make sure the game is as accessible to as wide an audience as possible.”
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