Driving success – Cairns Golf Club

Right from day one, when we first sat down with the business banker from Bendigo Bank, they actually made us feel like our business matters. The business banker was right there asking questions, down to pipe sizes, stuff like that. So, to have that understanding, it showed they cared and that our business mattered to them.

My name's Matt Bolton. I'm the general manager of Cairns Golf Club here in Far North Queensland. One of the big things we learned during the COVID period, when effectively the clubhouse was closed down, golf is our bread and butter.

It's what we do. So, we needed to fix the irrigation system.

Getting the support of Bendigo Bank was pivotal in getting this irrigation system done. There's no way we could have completed the project without their support. That's revolutionised our operation. Being able to get that irrigation system installed changed this club's trajectory for the next 30 years. We've never really been able to put the water where we want it. It's just let it fall out of the sky. So now with the irrigation system, we can actually put the water where we want.

The labour we used to waste, 25 to 30 hours a week turning stuff off and on. Now, we're actually going to be able to put that to better use in fixing the golf course, making it better, making other improvements.

The facility we've got is very flexible, very handy for us. So the loan that we actually use for the irrigation system, it's great. We can transfer money so simply backward and forwards to our standard operating account when we need it. And then obviously when we get funds coming back in, we can transfer it back over onto the loan. And we've got around five or six cards that staff use for different sections, which just gives the flexibility to do what we need.

We would 100% recommend Bendigo Bank to other operations, other golf courses, other community clubs. Go and talk to your local business banker. They've been fantastic to deal with for us and couldn't recommend them highly enough.