A Life Member of the PGA since 2002, Frank Phillips’ dedication to golf has been recognised during this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honour List with a Medal of the Order of Australia.

Every Tour Professional in the history of golf has worked hard to get to where they were. Success is built on sacrifice, self-discipline and repetition, as well as a reliable alarm clock. Then there is PGA Life Member, Frank Phillips, who is surely among the most driven competitors to ever swing a club.

"I practised extremely hard. I would set myself a task of hitting 500 to 1000 practice balls a day, then play a round of golf in the afternoon. Most of the time I managed to do that. It was the love of the game and wanting to do the best I could," he says. Perhaps that explains how the 1957 and 1961  Australian Open champion became known as one of the best ball strikers of his era.

Youthful Exuberance

Phillips fell in love with golf at the age of eight. Growing up in Moss Vale, in the Southern Highlands of NSW, he and some friends fashioned three golf holes out of the grassy paddock across the street from young Frank’s house. "One hole at the top of the hill, one down the bottom and one on the side.  We played those three holes over and over. It was a bit of a hit and giggle at the time, but I gradually improved," Phillips recalls.

As an enthusiastic 14-year-old, Phillips joined Moss Vale Golf Club, where that ‘hit and giggle’ approach quickly turned to hit, hit and hit again. "I focused very heavily on my game. I dropped from a handicap of 22 down to two in the space of 12 months," he says.

Three years later Moss Vale Head Professional, Bruce Jackson, asked 18-year- old Phillips if he wanted to follow him to Concord Golf Club and eventually turn Professional. "My Dad wasn’t too happy about the idea. I used to help run the family’s radio and television business and I played the trumpet  in a little band with Dad, who played the drums. We did some gigs around the place," Phillips says.

"But I thought about it and made up my mind. At 19 I went to live with my Aunty in Randwick and I travelled a long way to Concord Golf Club to start practising at half past six every morning. I did that for four years, completed my PGA Traineeship at the age of 22 and won my first tournament  at Bexley Golf Club, a short course that shouldn’t really have suited my game as a long hitter."

Bruce Crampton won the Australian Open in 1956, and his former Trainee Frank Phillips won it the following year.

"I used to practise extremely hard. I would set myself a task of hitting 500 to 1000 practice balls a day, then play a round of golf in the afternoon"

Learning from the best

During his Professional career Phillips mixed with the likes of Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan, learning up close and personal from the best in the business. "You watch, you listen and you ask as many questions as you can," he says. "I first met Gary Player in England in 1956 and he had possibly  the worst golf swing I’d ever seen. But he worked so hard at the game, kept improving, won a couple of tournaments in England and then ended up winning nine Majors, which was absolutely amazing. He was a fierce competitor, which inspired me."

With Player, Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer on the scene, winning Australian Open titles in the 1950s and ’60s was anything but easy. "It was pretty tough. Player won seven, Nicklaus won six and Palmer won two. That’s 15 years that we didn’t win it. I managed to sneak a couple in there," Phillips  says.

And there was the one that got away. "At the Open at Kooyonga in 1965 I played some of the best golf of my life. I was paired with Gary Player in the first round; he shot 62 and I shot 71 including seven three-putt greens. Then I shot 64, 66, 69 and Player only beat me by five shots. I had a real  chance of winning that, but I just couldn’t putt on day one and it cost me."

Times change

Phillips was forced to give the game away in his mid-40s due to persistent back troubles. "The golf swing has changed a lot. Now they turn their shoulders a lot more than they used to. All the modern equipment means they hit the ball a lot longer and the players don’t get bad backs like we did in my  day. But I had a good career, I had my moments," he says.

Of course the equipment and the physical toll aren’t the only aspects of the game to change over the decades.

"I remember one day I rang my good friend Kel Nagle after John Senden won a tournament worth $1.6 million in England a few years ago. I said to Kel, ‘Do you realise Senden just won more money in one tournament than we both won in our lifetimes combined?’ That’s crazy when you consider how  many tournaments Kel Nagle won. I made $2000 for a tournament victory in the Far East in my prime. It was a good living though," he says.

"I liked playing in the Far East because I had a wife and three kids and I could get home relatively quickly. It took a very long time to get home from America. Touring was a challenge, but I always enjoyed it."

Staying Involved

Following his premature retirement as a player, Phillips poured his energy into other aspects of the golf industry as a coach and Club Professional at Oaklands Golf Club, Ryde-Parramatta Golf Club and Mt Broughton Golf Club, where he also helped Bill Dunk design the course.

"I really enjoyed my time as a golf teacher. I just tried to teach the basic principles and not over-complicate things," he says.

"I feel like I have a strong connection to the clubs I worked at. Ryde-Parramatta asked me to be the patron which was quite special. You make a lot of friends when you’re a Club Pro. It’s always nice to go back. These days I play a couple of nine-hole rounds at Mt Broughton each week and that  does me."

Phillips was deservedly granted Life Membership of the PGA in 2002. "It’s always nice to be recognised. The PGA has been very good to me and having Life Membership is wonderful. I’m friends with most of the guys I used to play against so that camaraderie has continued many decades."