MEET the man who holds the future of Tamworth's Longyard Golf Course in his hands.
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John O'Rourke, spokesman for Dromahair Pty Ltd and managing director of cable distribution company, Breffny Engineering Pty Ltd, paid a deposit and exchanged contracts with the Longyard Golf Club Co-operative on Friday.
All that is left to do is for the co-operative's 298 members to give the nod and Mr O'Rourke will own a golf course with a chequered and painful history.
But that was hardly a deterrent for the 35-year-old investor who considered the Longyard upon the advice of good friend and financial advisor Tony Monaghan.
"I don't think anyone wants to touch something that has problems attached to it, but they were problems that were well publicised and I think it [the Longyard] is a good investment," Mr O'Rourke said.
The course made headlines for months this year as the co-operative did its best to negotiate a sale with a Brisbane-based consortium that promised a $7 million country golf resort.
But after nine months of on-again off-again negotiations, Longyard Country Club Resort Pty Ltd failed to meet a deadline to finalise the sale and all bets were off.
Enter Mr O'Rourke, who heads his family-owned company, Dromahair Pty Ltd, which has a diverse portfolio of investments from residential property in Brisbane to a 4000ha cropping property in Roma.
The family recently sold its wheat farm at North Star and moved its cable distribution business off that property to Tamworth.
