About SGA
About Social Golf Australia - Official golf handicaps and events
Social Golf Australia (SGA) is a golf service provider and golf club offering official golf handicaps and golf events. Our approach is to offer golfers value, flexibility and choice in a user-pays model where they can select the services that suit them and pay only for what they need.
SGA is the biggest golfing community in Australia and we have a range of industry partners that support SGA offering great value golf services. We currently offer official golf handicaps, host over 120 events a year in six states, six annual major tournaments (from 3-7 days long) and other feature events and golf tours. Our focus on fostering a friendly and welcoming golfing community based on the values of honesty, integrity, loyalty and trust has made SGA The Home of Social Golf in Australia.
"Through the power of community, connections and commitment, Social Golf Australia (SGA) has become Australia's largest interactive network of golfers"
History
The SGA story started in 2004, when founders Matthew and Sally Pitt formed Bushranger Golf—a social golf club for a group of passionate golfing mates. After hosting a few fun events and golf weekends to locations like the Murray River and Mornington Peninsula, Matt took the important step of qualifying as an official Australian Golf Handicapper in 2006. This allowed Bushranger Golf to provide Official Golf Australia handicaps for all the founding members of the club.
In 2007, Golf Australia proposed that Bushranger Golf—having proven itself to be a reputable and energetic club—become one of Australia’s first National Handicap Providers. This led to a surge in popularity of the club, with golfers around Australia accessing an official handicap through the club.
Following two years of active growth of the Bushranger Golf brand, Matt and Sally took a major initiative in 2008 and acquired the Australian Social Golf Club Championships (ASGCC) that had been founded at Palm Meadows on the Gold Coast in 2005.
Years of hard work and dedication was starting to pay off and the business was now outgrowing the Bushranger Golf brand. In 2009 Matt & Sally founded Social Golf Australia (SGA) to host the ASGCC and develop a national network of events around Australia. As SGA expanded, the ASGCC became The SGA Championships, which has grown leaps and bounds over the years, to become one of Australia's most popular and enjoyable amateur golf events.
In 2007 & 2008 we started hosting events in WA & NSW and in 2010 we partnered with David Rushmore, the founder of the Tour Fore Golfers in QLD, and SGA established The SGA Tour event series offering official golf events in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and SE Queensland. This was followed in 2011 by the founding of The SGA Tour in Adelaide. Through our partnerships with Srixon, Cleveland Golf, Heathcote Winery, Edge Loyalty, Garmin and a range of industry partners, SGA has continued to expand the range of events and services we offer for golfers around Australia.
From those humble beginnings in 2004, Social Golf Australia has grown to become the country’s largest golf club and golf network. In 2014 we established The SGA Golf Club to be the focus for delivering handicaps and now over 15,000 Australian golfers have received an official Golf Link number & GA Handicap through SGA. Our team has grown over the years, and we have also added SGA Ambassadors like Andy Lee, while dozens of social clubs and groups have trusted SGA to manage their official golf handicaps, golf trips, competitions, apparel and more.
Be Brave, be Honest, be Kind – Sally Pitt
In 2017 the SGA family was shaken to its core when Sally was diagnosed with breast cancer early in the year. After initially appearing to be manageable and treatable, things took a very serious turn later in 2017 with the prognosis changing as the cancer developed into something very aggressive and fast-moving.
Sally did not publicise that she was battling cancer because she had no interest in that being part of her identity. She was very private about her health as she did not want anyone’s pity or for people to change how they behaved towards her. She simply got on with what she had to do, and she was truly remarkable. Sally had three beautiful children to care for and they were her highest priority as she left no stone unturned to be the healthiest and best person she could be.
She bore the terrible discomfort of the treatments and the pain of symptoms with unbelievable courage, strength and will. She stayed positive and she had no interest in other people’s grief, mourning nor pity, so she hid the pain she was enduring to maintain a sense of normality in life and in her interactions with others.
Sally was unpretentious, honest, adventurous, fun and joyous and her mantra was, be brave, be honest and be kind. These are the values that she lived her life by, that made people love her so dearly and that saw her be so successful and highly regarded as a professional actor, singer & dancer in theatre, television & film. They are also the values that Sally taught her children and that are reflected in the family business which she founded with her husband.
Sally’s role with SGA was focussed on hosting the SGA Championships every August in QLD, which she loved very much, and managing the handicaps for our members of The SGA Golf Club. Over the years of growing the handicap enterprise from a handful of pals in a social club to one of the biggest golf clubs in Australia, Sally spoke with 1000s of golfers from around the country. She took great delight in helping people access and maintain a golf handicap and her friendly approach and attention to detail was appreciated by all the golfers who had the pleasure of talking with her.
In chatting to, corresponding with and helping one golfer at a time with their handicaps over many years, Sally has left a lasting legacy to the game of golf. All those individual conversations with golfers helped grow SGA into the largest golf club in Australia and establish a paradigm for accessing a golf handicap that has changed our industry. From their home office, Sally and Matt created a new model for how Australian golfers engage with the game.
It proved so popular, innovative and successful that it has been a catalyst for changing golf in Australia and a range of different providers in our sector have tried and imitate the SGA model over the years. None have reached the heights that SGA has achieved, primarily because they could not replicate the warm, friendly and personal service that Sally shared with golfers that has become the hallmark for how we run the SGA Golf Club and all the hundreds of SGA events and tournaments around Australia.
Sally passed away on December 21 2018. She was a person loved by so many people and her passing was felt by all the people who had been so fortunate to have shared their lives with Sally in some way. At her memorial service, Matt shared these reflections on his beautiful wife:
“If you are here today to pay your respects to Sally as someone you loved or admired or respected or appreciated, you probably don’t know half of it – she was the most incredible, beautiful, courageous and generous person I have ever met. Sally had a wonderful sense of fun and sense of humour, she was unpretentious, humble and generous, she respected herself and she gave that same respect to the people she was with. She gave everyone her attention, her warmth and her honesty. I have been blessed and basked more than any other in the warmth of her beauty for which I will always be grateful. She has inspired me and she is an inspiration to us all.”
Vision
Social Golf Australia aims to build a community of active social golfers through the creation of Australia's largest golf club offering official golf handicaps and Australia’s largest network of golf events. SGA’s goal is to create an inclusive model that offers the opportunity for all golfers to access official Australian golf handicaps and participate in enjoyable amateur golf events in a fun and socially engaging way. Through a range of online platforms, we will continue to foster the communities we have created around Australia since 2004 that allow golfers to share opinions, ideas, news, course and golf equipment reviews, articles and aspirations in a vibrant, fun and energetic golfing community.
SGA Core Values
- Be authentic and operate with honesty, reliability, kindness and integrity.
- Have fun and foster an inclusive and enjoyable culture for customers & staff.
- Approach business with an ethos of inquiry, learning and seeking improvement.
- Treat customers, suppliers, golf courses, playing partners, the rules of golf and the etiquette and traditions of the game with respect and consideration.
- Provide outstanding service, advice and representation to ensure all projects, services & events are delivered with 100% commitment and dedication.
- Build a reputation for professionalism, credibility, loyalty and trust.