CELEBRITY SWINGER
Greg Dowling, a cornerstone of Queensland success through the early years of the rugby league State of Origin collection, has at all times had a love for golf, a ardour which continues at present the place he’s an everyday on the fairways of the Ingham course in north Queensland.
Inside Golf’s Peter Owen caught up with Dowling not lengthy after a lethal reptile had conspired to derail his possibilities on the Sunshine Coast Spring Basic.
GREG Dowling, the previous Broncos and Maroons front-row enforcer, isn’t positive whether or not it was the sluggish play of the group in entrance, or the brown snake coiled round his golf ball within the tough on Noosa Springs’ fifth gap, that introduced his sport unstuck.
“I’m allergic to snakes,” he mentioned. “I’m afraid of the bloody issues,” a curious confession from a person whose 11 video games for Queensland and 12 for the Kangaroos had been constructed on unflinching braveness and intense aggression.
His assembly with the snake, guarding Dowling’s Titleist No 1 within the lengthy grass with possessive zeal, couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Dowling was taking part in within the last spherical of this 12 months’s Sunshine Coast Spring Golf Basic – a 72-hole match wherein membership golfers play 4 of the area’s most interesting programs, their mixture stableford scores figuring out the winners.
After the primary spherical at Maroochy River, he’d led the sector with 38 factors. The subsequent day, at Twin Waters, he tallied 40 factors to once more win the every day prize. And, after taking the honours for a 3rd straight day with 38 factors at Peregian, he led the sector by a whopping 9 factors going into the ultimate 18 holes.
However that’s the place it ended, his progress halted as definitely as if he’d run full velocity right into a Blocker Roach deal with. Dowling might cobble collectively solely 25 factors round Noosa Springs, permitting Southport customer Merv Tappenden to grab a one-point win over the previous rugby league star turned politician.
“We had this group of social gamers in entrance of us, who had been simply so sluggish,” he mentioned. “Then there was the snake. I couldn’t focus. Anyway, there’s at all times subsequent 12 months.”
Dowling, today, spends most of his time in his beloved North Queensland, the place he’s a member of the Ingham Golf Membership, the place the place he first discovered to play the sport as a teenager.
On the time, although, the fast-paced motion of rugby league held extra attraction for a teenager who revelled within the physicality of the sport, and whose expertise quickly caught the attention of recruiters who satisfied him his future was in Brisbane.
He performed for Wynnum Manly within the Brisbane league competitors, making his debut for the Seagulls in 1981 and profitable a spot within the Queensland facet for the 1984 State of Origin collection.
Within the second sport, performed in drenching rain on the Sydney Cricket Floor, Dowling featured in an unforgettable Origin second when he clung to a ball which had ricocheted from the crossbar after a Wally Lewis kick, and slid underneath the posts for a freakish strive, his muddied face alive with a triumphant grin.
The Maroons went on to win that sport 14-2 and clinch a collection win that made it 5 from the primary 5 collection performed.
Firmly established as one of many sport’s excellent props, Dowling performed all three video games within the 1985 State of Origin collection and each Check matches of that 12 months’s Australian tour of New Zealand, earlier than heading to the UK, the place he spent one wonderful season with Wigan.
Again in Australia in 1986, he was once more chosen for Queensland in State of Origin, then headed again to the UK as a part of the touring Kangaroos, taking part in in each Check. In 1988 he turned a basis member of the Broncos, and the next 12 months was Brisbane’s participant of the 12 months.
Damage pressured his retirement from the sport in 1991. He had performed 164 membership matches for Wynnum-Manly, Wigan, Northern Suburbs and the Brisbane Broncos; 11 State of Origins for Queensland; and 12 Checks for Australia, scoring a complete of 26 tries and, incongruously, kicking one area purpose (for Wigan).
However as a lot as his rugby league achievements earned him a spot as one of many sport’s greats, Dowling’s recollections of these instances are stuffed with {golfing} adventures.
He’d picked up golf once more whereas at Wynnum-Manly, taking part in commonly at Wynnum golf course with mates and fellow footballers, travelling to the Sunshine Coast for video games at Caloundraand Headland and, later, sneaking in a spherical or two on the previous Hyatt Coolum throughout Origin camps.
“After I was in England in 1985 with Wigan I performed at St Andrews – the most effective issues I’ve ever finished – and at Royal Liverpool and Royal Lytham and St Annes. Fabulous programs, all of them.”
Dowling says he enjoys golf due to the problem it poses to a person.
“I’d performed staff sports activities all my life,” he mentioned. “However with golf it’s simply you. Simply you in opposition to the course and, I suppose, in opposition to your self.
“There’s no higher feeling than hitting a crisp iron shot, or sinking a protracted putt.”
He says he used to have the ability to bomb drives 300 metres or additional however, at 64, the energy of his sport is now chipping and placing.
Dowling lately offered his Oporto rooster franchise in Townsville and is hopeful of maybe securing a place with the previous Queensland Nickel refinery, which was offered to a Swiss-based group a few years in the past by Clive Palmer.
Palmer and Dowling have been pals for years, with Dowling taking part in an advisory function in Palmer’s golf course belongings, which embrace two programs on the Gold Coast, one at Port Douglas, one in Perth, and Palmer’s controversial Coolum resort.
Dowling contested the 2019 federal election for Palmer’s United Australia Celebration for the seat of Herbert, and the 2020 Queensland state election because the UAP candidate for Townsville. He additionally ran as an unbiased for mayor of Townsville in early 2020.
None of these campaigns had been profitable and Dowling will not be actively contemplating working for public workplace once more. “It’s laborious yakka,” he mentioned, “and I copped lots of flak for it.”
However he nonetheless believes he has one thing to supply and feels his contribution to public life might make a distinction.
“If Clive needs to go once more, who is aware of the place I’ll find yourself?” he mentioned.
Within the meantime, he’s having fun with watching the revival of the Broncos, expects them to do even higher subsequent 12 months as their younger expertise matures, and reckons Kevin Walters has proven the rugby league world he is aware of coach.
And he needs one other crack at that Spring Basic on the Sunshine Coast – to indicate everyone, together with himself, that he’s no choker.
