Under the Auld Pump: Hole-in-one bowled Tony Scott over

Born: Sydney on December 14, 1948.

Wife: Shirley. Children: Shane, Kellie, Adam and Dana.

Education: St Francis Xavier Primary School, Kogarah, Sydney before going to Marist College, Kogarah.

Sporting highlight: Landing a hole in-one at the Apollo Bay golf course in 2008.

Tony, it's a great achievement to get a hole-in-one on any golf course. What are your memories of the achievement?

It was on the first hole, to be precise, on a social day of golf.

I got the ball mounted and it holds pride of place at home.

The inscription says the hole-in-one occurred on October 29, 2008.

The years are just flying past. It only seemed like yesterday that I got the hole-in-one.

I now play golf when I can at Port Fairy.

My biggest concern playing golf there is the marram grass. I'm forever losing my golf ball in the marram grass; in saying that, it's a wonderful golf course at Port Fairy.

I might play in the veteran competition on Mondays and line up again on Wednesdays in the pro-comp.

I usually play a lot more golf at Port Fairy in the off-season away from lawn bowls.

Tony, I note with interest you were born and raised in Sydney. What made you make the move to Warrnambool?

It would have been in 2002.

My wife Shirley has family down this way.

We just decided one day that we would make the move to Warrnambool and I'm glad we did as we really enjoy it.

We've got involved in work and various community things over the years and love it.

Let's go back before your move to Warrnambool. What did you do for work?

I was a director of VIDEO 2000 from 1984.

We ran 20 stores across various parts of NSW and Queensland plus Victoria, including one in Warrnambool.

It was a very busy time in our lives. Prior to my time with VIDEO 2000, I had worked in the public service for 18 years.

It took long hours to run the various stores for the group because most of the trade for the business was at night time.

It was a very competitive business, as you were always six months behind the release dates at the picture theatres.

We watched closely as the video world evolved.

It might have cost us $109 to buy a top movie and then we had to rent it out.

We were also raising young children at that time of our lives.

We got out of the VIDEO 2000 business in 1998.

A job came up as the manager of Warrnambool's Gateway Plaza in 2009, so I took that job up until 2013.

Gateway was run by AMP back in that era.

The job was pretty structured. It centred around going to Melbourne or Sydney for meetings.

Had the new extensions at Gateway Plaza started when you were the manager?

No. They started about nine months after I left the position.

The plaza got really busy when the Warrnambool City Council introduced more parking metres and increased the cost of parking in the city centre.

It was amazing to see how much more foot traffic was at Gateway after the WCC increased the parking fees and I would say it would be even more now, as the extensions captured more patrons.

With plazas, it's all about attracting national retailers. Once you have them on board, smaller, independent businesses want to go there and people flock there. I can fully understand why the plaza has been so successful here.

Firstly, there's free parking. Secondly, a lot of tourists who come to Warrnambool are used to plaza shopping and, thirdly, patrons don't have to battle the weather elements.

I also taught various subjects relating to business management and office administration down at South West TAFE.

Tony, away from the business world, let's talk about your lawn bowls career. Which club do you play lawn bowls for?

I've always loved sport - whether that was competing or just watching.

I got involved with golf in my 50s, the gym when I turned 57, and now I'm heavily involved with the Dennington Bowls Club.

My bowls career commenced playing indoor bowls before transferring to the outside version of the game. I reckon I played indoor bowls for four years with Dennington in the Warrnambool competition before switching over to the pennant competition with Dennington in 2016.

I joined the board of the Dennington Bowls Club in 2016 before taking over as the president in 2019. I've been in the role for the last two years.

Tony, how many members does the Dennington Bowling Club have now?

I think it's just over 100, which includes pennant, social bowlers and clubhouse members who don't bowl. The club is in a pretty good financial position but not as good as some of the bigger clubs. We have three weekend pennant sides and one mid-week pennant side.

The club is working very hard to attract whatever financial grants we can get, as we've got numerous improvements we want to do on the drawing board.

What would some of those improvements be that the club is looking at doing in the future?

There are things like external toilets, shade sails, new barbecue area that we're working on and we're looking at a master plan for the site.

We're a very family-oriented bowls club that is working tirelessly to improve our amenities for our members, players and opposition players.

I would say one of our greatest strengths is we're a community-based club.

It's a great facility we have but we're always looking at ways of making improvements.

We were like everyone else, we were knocked around by COVID but we're bouncing back now.

The biggest problem we have is attracting people across the Merri River. It's really strange. People will get to the Merri River bridge and turn back into town without even going another hundred yards to our facility.

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