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In Australia, there are sporting greats and there is Ricky Ponting. John Howard famously quipped in the 1990s that, as prime minister, he held the second-most important office in the country behind the captain of the Test cricket team. But even among Australian captains, Ponting – who led the national sides between 2004 and 2011 – was a world apart.
Under him Australia dominated the game – Ashes urns were retained as a matter of expectation. World Cups were lifted with cold inevitability.
Less well known, at least to the public, was that away from cricket Ponting was a star in another sporting arena – golf.
His handicap was +3 (he was so good he had to give shots back). He’s an ambassador for global golfing giant Callaway; he’s beaten close friends and professionals Aaron Baddeley and Daniel Popovic over 18 holes. He has a career-best round of 64, which he shot on the north course at Peninsula Kingswood, a ritzy Frankston club of which he is now a member.
Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne during the New Zealand Open in 2017. Credit: Getty Images
South African golfing giant Gary Player once told Ponting during a round in Portugal that he was “playing the wrong sport”. Greg Chappell, another former Test cricket captain, says Ponting is a “beautiful golfer”.
So it was no surprise that about a month after Ponting retired from international cricket and moved with his family to Melbourne from Sydney, he set about becoming a member of one of Australia’s most prestigious golf clubs: Royal Melbourne.
It was February 2, 2013, when an impressive group of golfers proposed Ponting – known as “Punter” – become a member of their club.
More than four years later, that bid failed. In 2017, after delays, embarrassments, rumours and knock-backs, Ponting finally withdrew his application.
Ponting in full flight during his cricket career: celebrating a Test hundred against South Africa in 2006.Credit: AP
Until now, this story has never been told.
So what happened on Melbourne’s undulating sandbelt to lock one of Australia’s most revered sporting figures out of one of its most famous clubs?
And what, if anything, did Sam Newman and Shane Warne have to do with it?
Wealth and status
Royal Melbourne isn’t like most golf clubs. It’s so well known that its name is often shortened.
“Where do you play your golf?” one might ask.
“Royal,” comes the reply. Those five letters signal power, wealth and exclusivity.
Nestled in the bayside suburb of Black Rock, Royal is down the road from some of the most expensive real estate in the country. It’s one of Melbourne’s famous “sandbelt” courses, so called because of the sandy loam subsoil they are built on.
The Royal Melbourne gallery watches Rory McIlroy (right) in last year’s Australian Open.Credit: Getty Images
Clubs like Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Victoria, Commonwealth, Metropolitan, Huntingdale, and Yarra Yarra are members-only establishments that are mostly closed to the public, except for special events and tournaments like December’s Australian Open at Royal, where Irish superstar Rory McIlroy was the major drawcard.
But they also provide a window to Melbourne’s social, sporting and business elite.
For purists, Royal is regarded as one of the best golf courses on the planet. When McIlroy bluntly offered his opinion that Kingston Heath was better, many Royal members simply shrugged, so confident were they in the quality and reputation of the club’s two courses, east and west, which combine to form the composite.
Unsurprisingly, discretion is a byword at these private establishments, so when this masthead spoke to 11 people – all current Royal Melbourne members or former high-ranking officials – about Ponting, none would speak publicly.
Ponting playing at the New Zealand Open in 2018.Credit: Getty Images
The secret to his failure, however, can be found in the club’s arcane rules.
It can take more than a decade on the waiting list to become a member of Royal Melbourne. There is no special treatment.
To even begin the process, you must have a proposer and a seconder who have each been a member for at least eight years. In addition, you must have four other sponsors who each have at least five years of membership.
In total, the six people proposing you must have, as a minimum, a combined 36 years of membership.
It’s a similar process to that of the Melbourne Club, as featured in a separate series by this masthead, which one member of that club said ensured only one kind of person was allowed in the door.
Royal Melbourne is rated one of the best golf courses in the world and it can take a decade to become a member.Credit: Gary Lisbon
When Ponting sought Royal membership, his proposers could not have exuded more wealth or status.
Among them were former Essendon chairman and Cathedral Golf Club founder David Evans; the then Cricket Australia CEO, James Sutherland (who now runs Golf Australia); Goldman Sachs investment banking head Christian Johnston; and former Foster’s and CUB mover and shaker James King.
The list was supposed to be like Australia’s batting order during Ponting’s captaincy: unstoppable.
The wets, the dries and the rising damps
But there was a hitch. And one morning in March 2013 – just weeks after his proposers lodged the paperwork on his behalf – Ponting got caught up in it.
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He had been granted temporary membership because the club’s hierarchy believed he could provide leadership guidance to the pennant team.
So, one Thursday morning in March that year, Ponting brought three of his mates to play – Shane Warne, former New Zealand cricket captain Stephen Fleming and AFL personality Sam Newman.
There are three main groups at Royal Melbourne who play on Thursdays. They’re known as “the wets, the dries and the rising damps”, say sources connected to the club.
‘It’s the insular, patronising, elite people who fear those who don’t move in their own circles.’
Sam Newman’s thinking on the membership of Royal Melbourne
The wets enjoy themselves – they indulge in a bottle of red (each) before heading out to play. The dries are more reserved. They play in the morning field and hold off drinking until after their 18 holes.
The rising damps? Well, they’re somewhere in between stone-cold sober and over-imbibed.
On this particular Thursday, the wets and the dries were both settled in at the clubhouse when Ponting, Warne, Fleming and Newman strolled in after their round.
It’s worth noting that all of Ponting’s guests were themselves golfing tragics who played off single-figure handicaps. Warne and Newman in particular regularly played golf with Ponting.
Sam Newman, pictured in 2023, was a regular playing partner of Ponting on the golf course.Credit: Getty Images
For years, Chappell says he paired with Warne against Ponting and Evans in a Ryder Cup-style tournament. Ponting played off scratch and Warne off a handicap of eight.
“Punter used to hate it because he knew, no matter how well he played, he just couldn’t beat Warnie because he’s a good putter and a good pressure player,” Chappell says. “You could see the steam coming out of Punter’s ears, it was just fascinating.
“You were playing for bragging rights, you just wanted to be the bloke who could tip a bit of shit. That’s what it was like with Ricky and Warnie.”
Warne and Newman were known for being boisterous after 18 holes. And on that particular Thursday in March 2013, neither the wets nor the dries in the Royal clubhouse took fondly to the antics of the celebrity group.
Fleming politely declined to comment on the situation. Newman, on the other hand, spoke freely.
He dismissed claims that he, Ponting, Warne and Fleming behaved in any way poorly in the clubhouse that day. He blames the existing members for wanting to exclude those they see as outsiders.
Golf Australia CEO James Sutherland (centre, at Royal Melbourne in December) backed Ponting’s bid to join the club.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
“It’s the insular, patronising, elite people who fear those who don’t move in their own circles,” Newman said about those who disapproved of their group. “They’re in a bubble that the long-term members protect, and they surround themselves with their own kind.”
Newman, a prolific golfer, is a member at the National, another prestigious golf club on the Mornington Peninsula. The National will also feature in this masthead’s series on Melbourne’s elite golf clubs.
Newman, a former Geelong Australian rules champion and television star, said he was once asked by Royal Melbourne members if he, too, wanted to join. He had shrugged and said why not. His application, he said, was immediately rejected.
“They’re probably fearful of people with a bit more relevance in society that will shame their draconian views of life. It’s the snobbish elite who protect their space.”
Wherever the truth lies, neither the wets nor the dries were enamoured of the group’s presence. It was not the best start for Ponting’s membership approval.
At Royal, as at many other members-only clubs, when a new person is proposed, active members are provided with an opportunity to challenge, or blackball the candidate. At Royal Melbourne, for a new applicant to be successful, seven members must vote yes for every no vote.
According to documents seen by this masthead, 27 people indicated they would vote against Ponting’s application at a membership ballot.
One of the reasons given by a perturbed member was that Ponting didn’t address him by name on the practice range, but simply called him “mate”.
Lyn Swinburne was the head of Royal Melbourne’s membership committee at the time of Ponting’s application.
That meant he needed 189 yes votes. In a club with a membership of more than 2000 people, getting the yeses shouldn’t have been a problem.
But the indication that 27 people were prepared to vote no was a warning. It was a shot across the bow.
The membership committee
At the time of Ponting’s application, Royal Melbourne’s membership committee was run by Lyn Swinburne.
A former primary school teacher, Swinburne founded the Breast Cancer Network of Australia in the late 1990s after surviving cancer herself.
All 11 sources connected to the club had the same story to tell when it came to Swinburne. They liked her, they respected her, and they all believed she had it in for Ponting’s application.
Why? They had no idea.
When Swinburne was contacted, she declined to comment.
As the weeks wore on after the first vote, it was becoming clearer to Ponting and people close to him that he was being blocked.
‘Punter used to hate it because he knew, no matter how well he played, he just couldn’t beat Warnie because he’s a good putter and a good pressure player … it was just fascinating.’
Greg Chappell on what it was like watching Ponting play on the golf course
Evans – who played with and proposed Ponting – tried to be the mediator and set up a meeting with Swinburne in Evans’ CBD office. There were clearly others who opposed Ponting’s bid, but according to sources close to the situation at the time, Swinburne made it clear to Ponting’s proposers that the former cricket captain should simply “look for another club”.
But Ponting’s people persisted. They believed he would be a tremendous addition to Royal’s membership base and, furthermore, would add another level of prestige to the club.
Ponting declined to be interviewed for this story.
His friend and regular golfing partner, former Australian batsman Greg Blewett, admitted it was known in cricket circles that Royal Melbourne had scuppered Ponting’s membership bid.
Blewett, a member of Kooyonga in Adelaide, describes Ponting as a gun golfer with “nuffy” levels of knowledge for the game and its equipment.
Blewett said that until now even he had not known the story behind the former Australian captain’s failed bid.
Newman said he wasn’t surprised that someone as famous as Ponting was knocked back. He said he knows of several other high-profile Australians who were rejected for membership of Royal Melbourne. He said he wouldn’t name them out of respect for their privacy.
Even Ponting’s close friend, Greg Blewett (pictured playing golf in 2013), was unaware of the former Australian skipper’s failed membership application.Credit: Jeffrey Chan
“There’s an overwhelming propensity to knock people back who don’t fit the mould,” he continued. “That’s their only real power over someone like Ricky Ponting.”
Royal Melbourne, which declined to be involved in this story, has about 2000 members.
“The club does not comment on individual applications for membership, nor do we discuss matters relating to current or prospective members,” said RM general manager Michael Burgess.
Club insiders said that there are plenty of doctors and lawyers on the books, but there are some unwritten rules about people from certain professions who might find it harder to get in.
Real estate agents, for one. It’s said that the club tries to avoid conflict, for example, between wealthy members and real estate agents with whom they might have endured a tense property negotiation.
Nor are there many jockeys. The problem there, so the rumour goes, is that there’s too high a chance the jockey will have recently ridden another member’s horse in a way that didn’t please them.
Eventually, word got around the sandbelt that Ponting was looking for a club and coming up short at Royal. The sharks started circling. The first fin in the water was that of Peter Clarke, captain of Royal’s rival, Kingston Heath.
“We’ll have him tomorrow,” Clarke told a senior member at Royal.
Eventually, on November 17, 2017, more than 4½ years after he was initially proposed, Ponting withdrew his membership application for Royal Melbourne.
The next day, he was granted membership of Metropolitan.
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