we’re all aligned, unified and have a
common purpose and direction that
we’ve jointly identified, it will give us
a better result for more people in the
sport.
“So not only will we have more money
to invest into the game, we’ll also have a
better system to invest into.
“Currently we have duplication with staff
around the country and we realise we
have gaps in certain areas – areas that
we’d like to have more of a focus on
such as female participation, facilities
planning and helping clubs face their
daily challenges.
“So effectively we can have the same
number of staff, but we’d have them
better focused on more appropriate
areas where they can have the greatest
impact. We’d expect a better outcome
from that facet alone.”
Pitt is adamant that the time for action is
upon the sport.
“I feel the industry is looking for
leadership and change in this area, from
both GA and state bodies,” he said.“We’ve
put a lot of work into this and had a lot
of external support to ensure we have
the best possible model for us to achieve
the sport’s goals while alienating as few
people as possible along the way.
“When you look at the Australian sporting
landscape, at the very top end of the
tree we’re working in the same space as
sports that get a massive head start in
terms of broadcast rights deals, sports
such as the AFL, NRL, cricket and tennis.
“The revenues their broadcast deals
generate are huge and our challenge is to
make sure we use the money we do have
available as well as possible so that we
can compete.
“We need to increase revenues wherever
we can and then unify and become
efficient in how we deliver services to
have any chance of competing against
those better-resourced sports.
“Golf sits at or near the top of all the
`second-tier’ sports that don’t have the
massive broadcast revenues, so we need
to be more efficient in terms of how we
spend our funding – that’s a key driver
behind OneGolf.
“It’s an exciting time for golf and a lot of
people are committed to seeing through
the change.”
Pitt said there was no firm timeline for
all states in agreement to align with
OneGolf, but that he hoped most would
be close by early in 2018.
Golf Industry Central I Winter 2017
23