BRUCE and Sandy Ottaway had it all worked out – work hard for a few more years and then sail off into the sunset.
But Mother Nature scuttled their plans when the disastrous Brisbane flood ripped through their golf supplies business at Rocklea.
The Ottaways, who own the wholesale business Aussie Junior Pro and Redback Sport, face hefty losses with the retail value of his damaged stock amounting to $800,000.
“We can’t really complain when you consider what happened,” Bruce said. “You just have to get back up and keep going.
“What’s the other option?
“It’s just a little road block that gets in the way and you get over it and keep going.
“There are other people in the area with businesses and they have just walked away with nothing.
“We are lucky we still have a business. We are back trading and we’ll be fully-stocked in a few weeks.”
Bruce was quick to assure his wife Sandy life would go on.
“Sandy was pretty upset about the whole thing when it happened and I said all it means is that we will have to work a couple of years longer than we originally planned.
“Okay, we have lost all this money, but all it has done is extend our working life a bit more.
“If you spread out the loss over a number of years it’s not so bad.”
Aussie Junior Pro and Redback Sport lost half its stock when the water rose as high as the mezzanine floor.
“We knew the flood was coming and moved some of the stock,” Bruce said.
“We didn’t think it would get up to our premises and we thought if it did it would only come in on the floor a little bit.
“So I lifted as much off the floor as I could and filled up the racking, but I couldn’t get everything off the floor.
“So we lost everything on the floor, everything on the first level of racking and some of it on the next level of racking as well.”
The Ottaways moved their business from Sherwood to the area seven years ago.
“The place burnt down so we moved here and now we have been flooded,” Bruce said.
He said he was getting mixed messages from his insurer.
“We have insurance for fire and damage, but not flood.
“It covers rainwater coming up from the street, but they won’t pay us out for that because it was a flood.”
Chief writer David Newbery has been living, breathing and writing and editing golf for more than 30 years. His extensive knowledge of the game comes from covering golf around the world. Hired by Inside Golf in 2009, David previously worked as the editor of The Golfer for 25 years and before that worked for numerous daily newspapers in Australia and overseas. The Brisbane-based journalist describes his golf game as “a work in progress”, but has had the privilege of playing golf with some of the game’s best players including nine-time major winner Gary Player. David enjoys travelling, reading, music, photography and spending time with family and friends – on and off the golf course. 
