Australian Dictionary of Biography

Douglas Bachli, 1954

Australian Gallery of Sport and Olympic Museum

Douglas William Bachli (1922–2000), golfer, was born on 2 April 1922 at Albert Park, Melbourne, only child of Victorian-born John Philip Bachli, motor mechanic and later publican, and his English-born wife Edith, née Miles. His father’s family background was Swiss, ‘Bächli’ meaning ‘little stream’ in German. John Bachli managed the Terminus Hotel in Brighton (1926–30) and the Victoria Hotel in Shepparton (1930–33), before returning to Melbourne as licensee of the Sandringham Hotel. Doug attended Sacred Heart School, Sandringham, and Christian Brothers’ College, St Kilda. A natural swimmer, he won the Victorian under twelve 50-yard championship in record time in 1934.

At the end of 1935 the family moved to Canberra and John took over the running of the government-owned hostel Brassey House in Barton. Doug completed his education at Telopea Park High School (1936–37), Canberra High School (1938), and St Patrick’s College, Goulburn (1939). He continued to excel at swimming, notably in freestyle and backstroke, and in 1936 represented the Australian Capital Territory at a schoolboy Australian Rules football carnival in Adelaide, winning the medal for the fairest and best player. But it was as a golfer that he was to achieve national and international fame. He first attracted attention as a fourteen-year-old at the 1937 Royal Canberra Easter Tournament, then a major fixture on the Australian golfing calendar. From a handicap of twenty, he won the 36-hole Canberra Cup feature event with a net score of 129, ten strokes ahead of his nearest opponent. He won the Cup again the next year from a handicap of nine.

In 1939 the Bachli family moved back to Victoria and John became the licensee of the new Rosebud Hotel. Doug worked with his father until November 1941, when he began full-time duty in the Citizen Military Forces for service in World War II. Transferring to the Australian Imperial Force in August 1942, he served as a corporal in 135th General Transport Company in Darwin (January 1944 to June 1945). Discharged in November 1945, he worked briefly as a salesman in a hardware store before rejoining his father at the Rosebud Hotel. Father and son also had a thoroughbred racing stud at nearby Dromana and breeding and racing horses became a lifelong interest.

The nature of Bachli’s employment gave him plenty of time to play and practice golf at both the nearby Sorrento course and at the Victoria Golf Club, Cheltenham, one of Melbourne’s elite sandbelt courses, where he had been a member since 1939. In 1948 he established himself as one of the leading golfers in Australia, winning the Australian Amateur Championship, the Queensland title, and the first of twelve club championships at the Victoria Golf Club. The next year he won the first of three Victorian Amateur Championship titles (1949, 1950, and 1953). He represented Victoria in interstate competition each year from 1946 to 1960, the only exception being 1954 when he was overseas with the victorious Australian team in the first Commonwealth Tournament at St Andrews, Scotland.

The Australian triumph at St Andrews was overshadowed by Bachli’s individual victory at Muirfield, Scotland, in the 1954 British Amateur Championship, then the most prestigious amateur golfing event in the world. It was his greatest golfing achievement and made him a sporting hero in Australia. Starting as the underdog in the 36-hole match-play final against a more experienced American, William ‘Big Bill’ Campbell, Bachli was two holes down with five to play, but the American’s nerves gave away under the constant pressure of Bachli’s consistent tee-to-green play. Bachli triumphed at the 35th hole. The leading British golf writer Bernard Darwin called the victory ‘one of the greatest things ever done in our Amateur Championship’ (Lawrence 1988, 91), while Henry Longhurst described Bachli as a ‘delightfully modest and unassuming fellow with a great heart’ (Lawrence 1988, 91).

John Bachli had sold the lease of the Rosebud Hotel shortly before his death in 1952, after which Doug worked as sales manager for the Melbourne refrigerator manufacturer Lindberg Foster Co. Pty Ltd. On 9 April 1953 at Our Lady of Victories Church, Camberwell, he married Dorothy May Wearne, a dressmaker and fashion model. They were to have four surviving children, Michelle, Simon, Mark, and Paul; a son, John, died at birth in 1956. That year, having gained a victualler’s license, Bachli took over the lease of the Carlton Hotel in Bourke Street, Melbourne, running it with his mother until 1964. In 1958 he was active in fund-raising campaigns for the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria, using his connections and reputation to raise money for research.

Bachli continued to be a dominant amateur golfer. He was a member of the Australian team that won the first Eisenhower Trophy (World Men’s Amateur Team Championships), played in 1958 at St Andrews, and in 1962 he became the Australian Amateur Champion for the second time. The Australian professional golfer Peter Thomson, who had won the British Open in 1954, recalled that ‘his strength as a player came from a stocky build, on which he based an orthodox swing with a tidy rhythm … his drive was infallible’ (2000, 32).

‘A dedicated amateur … [who] never regretted not turning pro’ (Meldrum 2000, 104), Bachli announced his retirement from interstate and international competitive golf in 1964. He began work as a promotions officer for Ansett Airlines and as a television sports commentator on ATV-0 (Channel 10). He was a great encourager of younger golfers, often getting them free flights to enable them to play in tournaments around Australia. Partnered by a fellow Ansett employee, Jock Balding, he won the World Airlines Championships in Phoenix, Arizona (1966) and at Turnberry, Scotland (1971), and was tournament director for the 1969 competition in Melbourne.

Appointed MBE in 1976, Bachli was the founding president (1982–86) of the Golf Society of Australia and was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1988 the GSA established the Doug Bachli Trophy in his honour. Although a non-drinker, he was ‘the last to leave any function and enjoyed himself more than anyone’ (Davis 2000, 14). Thomson recalled ‘his endless good humour, and his great passion for the game’ (2000, 32). Battling Alzheimer’s disease, he died in Melbourne on 5 January 2000. He was included in Victoria’s Golfing Team of the Century in 2002 and inducted into the Victorian Golf Industry Hall of Fame in 2011.