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Sherratt talked about getting into the golf business. He was a guy with a numbers background who, maybe by fate and certainly through a synchronicity of improbable events, found himself as a head professional.

“I wasn’t supposed to be in the golf business, I couldn’t get a job cleaning golf clubs in my hometown (Brantford, Ont.),” said Sherratt, who finished two years of a three-year business administration course at Mohawk College after graduating from high school in 1969.

“I said, after two years, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be happy being an accountant.’ The game of golf was obsessing me. I was an OK player back then, but I was probably a 10 or 12 handicap.

“I moved to London and became a roommate with my best buddy from high school (Bob McKinley). Bob was at Western at the business school. We used to play kitchen-table bridge. He had a couple of guys over one night. I had found out I could have my name added to a list that the PGA of Ontario circulated every spring to golf professionals. The list had names of people who wanted to get into the golf business at the entry level.

“One of the guys gets up from the table, he goes into the kitchen to get a beer, he comes back with an envelope with a Royal Ottawa logo on it. He said, ‘Who knows somebody at the Royal Ottawa?’ I said, ‘Oh, that’s me, my name’s on a list to get into the golf business. Tom Mann, the head pro at the Royal Ottawa, sent me a letter asking me to send in an application.’

“The next thing you know, this guy goes over to the phone and says, ‘Tommy, how are ya?’ They chat for a while. It turns out this is Geordie Hilton (the future executive director of the RCGA), he’s in the business program at Western, a classmate of my buddy. He said, ‘(Tommy) don’t look any further, you sent Paul Sherratt a note asking for his resumé, forget it — just hire the guy.’ Tom said, ‘Show up April 15,’ and the rest is history.”