For some years, Nicole Martino felt torn between two seemingly distinct worlds in golf – that of PGA pro and senior club management. But with determination and a strong sense of purpose, she found a way to straddle both.
On January 12 this year, Nicole Martino commenced duties as general manager of Wembley Golf Course in Western Australia.
It was a redirection for Wembley – its first female general manager – and for Martino, a long-time goal achieved. The synergy is perfect. For Wembley is not just any golf course and Martino not just any person.
Both are vibrant, full of energy and have a vision for the future. And both have the respect of the golf industry. Their alignment is something of a reconnection rather than a new relationship – but more on that shortly.
Martino is from a golf family – and yet, not. Her parents Karen and Michael Montgomery had never played. But when they moved to Western Australia from England in 1995, by chance they moved very close to Royal Fremantle Golf Club, which had an excellent junior program.
“It was me who said, ‘I’d like to play golf,’” Martino says. “The fact that we three kids could all do it at the same time and it was so close to home was what made it happen and we all just got hooked very early on. The sibling rivalry kept us interested.”
All turned out to be fine golfers. Older sister Danielle is a teaching pro while younger brother Michael is a multiple club champion at Mount Lawley Golf Club in Perth.
In fact, the broader family has significant golf pedigree. Martino’s husband John is also a PGA pro. A three-time member of the WA Colts state team, he was runner-up in the 2009 WA Amateur and has won the Western Australian Golf Club (WAGC) championship three times.
The couple met at a junior golf tournament, the then-South West 54-Hole Classic, when John was 17 and Nicole 16 and have been together since. They have two children, Olivia and Daniel, who are junior development members at WAGC where Nicole is also a house member.
Sister Danielle, a former 10-year Ladies European Tour player, teaches at Hamersley Public Golf Course when she is not travelling with her tennis-pro husband and 2024 Olympic Games men’s doubles gold medallist, John Peers. Peers has a 6-handicap at Lake Karrinyup, where both play, along with their two daughters.
In 2010, Nicole and Danielle paired in the WA Foursomes. For 63 years, only men had contested that event but the sisters were unfazed.
“I do remember it being a novelty that two sisters were playing together, but for us it was just a fun opportunity to play foursomes and see if we could beat any of the men,” Nicole recalls.
Martino had a terrific amateur career, including the 2004 WA Junior Championship, being part of the victorious Australian team in the 2004 Junior Girls Tasman Cup played between Australia and New Zealand, being a member of both the WA Junior Women’s team and the victorious WA team in the 2003 and 2005 Australian Girls’ Interstate Series, and claiming the 2007 and 2008 WA Women’s Amateur.
She attended Pepperdine University in California, playing collegiate golf, before returning home to concentrate further on her game: “I was committed to playing tour golf and putting in all the work that was needed.”
This is when Wembley Golf Course first entered her life. Her coach Rob Farley was lease-holder of Wembley at the time and in 2009 he encouraged Martino to apply for a casual position there to help facilitate her practice, rather than doing hard yards in unrelated hospitality jobs.
“Rob was a very, very influential piece of that early puzzle,” Martino said.
In 2010 she made the leap to the professional ranks. “I just felt ready. The Australian women’s tour meant you could play from January to March, so the plan was to do that and play in some Asian events. That could then lead you into the back end of the year where you could prep for making the Ladies European Tour.”
But a close family wedding clashed with Q-School. So, miss that important event or forgo her dream?
“I was torn. There was also having to spend all my savings on trying to qualify without knowing the outcome. And if I got my tour card, that would be incredible, but I’d have no money. Then there was my relationship with John and the question of tour life or family life. This was all going around in my head.
“And it was all the trigger of, ‘You know what? Maybe it’s just not meant to be. I love golf; there’s opportunities I can take through another route. I’m just going to do a traineeship and have a career in golf.’”
There are no regrets.
“As a life motto, I really embrace opportunities when they’re presented,” Martino says. “I could have been devastated, but I just thought, OK, I can do this instead. And once you commit to something, you back yourself.”
Backing herself was needed back then, for there were very few women in the broader golf industry, either as vocational/teaching pros or in golf club management.
“To be honest, being a vocational pro was viewed as where ‘the failed tour pros went’.”
Martino is anything but a failed pro. In the early days of her pro career, she was the first female to win a PGA of Australia pro-am, tying with a handful of others in an event at Royal Fremantle. And in the third year of her traineeship, she won an academic scholarship.
“Finishing top of the academics was a bit of an ‘a-ha’ moment for me. I thought, This is my area of strength, I like structure, I’m organised, I like to make things better for people, I like improving processes and writing up policies. Management is a really great place for me to put those to use.
“So I used the scholarship to pay for a Diploma of Management through the PGA Institute. I finished my traineeship in December 2012, gave birth to Olivia in early 2013, and then completed the diploma through 2013 while I was at home with her.”
Are we yet noticing that this is not a person who lets grass grow under her feet? Martino’s move towards golf-club management was deliberate but it required her to tread with care.
Things have changed much in the golf industry since that time, when there was a significant dichotomy between being a PGA member and being a golf club manager, each with its their own distinct territory.
“I realised very quickly that to break into golf club management, I would need to shift from one perceived identity to the other,” she says.
To that end, and with second child Daniel in a pram, in 2015 Martino headed off to Edith Cowan University to undertake a Bachelor of Business degree with a major in Sport Management. By now the pivot towards club management had taken further hold with her decision to leave her coaching role.
“Being available for coaching kept me in that ‘box’ of being a PGA coaching member rather than a PGA member focused on management. So at that point I drew a line and said, ‘Respectfully, I’m not a coach, I’m a management professional.”
Degree in hand, Martino boldly approached Golf Management Australia (GMA) Western Australia president Brad Dawson looking for potential opportunities and, six months later, he offered her a part-time job as GMA WA operations manager.
Fast forward a couple of years and Damien Todorovic, the dynamic general manager at WAGC, approached Martino to join his staff. As golf operations manager at this prestigious club for nigh on five years, Martino was heavily involved in two wonderful initiatives at the club: instituting the outstanding Australian Junior Girls Scholarship Program and as a coach throughout 2025 for the R&A Leadership Development Program.
The AJGSP, initially introduced by Bonnie Boezeman at her home club of Killara in Sydney, was later expanded through the Australian Golf foundation to clubs nationally with the aim of introducing girls between 9 and 16 years to embrace the game.
The R&A Leadership Development Program, open to clubs which are signatories to the R&A Women in Golf Charter, is designed to strengthen leadership skills and build lasting professional networks to empower women within the golf industry.
“That was another opportunity that I said yes to, because I really do believe in saying ‘yes’ when things present themselves,” Martino says.
In her time at WAGC she also said ‘yes’ to tackling and completing the challenging Certified Club Manager (CCM) qualification through Club Management Association America. Along with Fiza Errington, then general manager at Perth’s Gosnells Golf Club, Martino was the first Australian woman to achieve this prestigious qualification. Her achievements at WAGC resulted in her being named the 2023 Western Australian PGA Professional Management of the Year, a significant award.
And so to Wembley, where once again she said ‘yes’ to opportunity. Happy at WAGC, Martino had no particular intention to move but by chance, from earlier days, her Seek settings were set to remind her each time a job within golf was listed. A listing for a general manager at Wembley caught her eye.
“I was OK if I didn’t get the job, but it was wonderful when I did.”
Wembley is one of Perth’s oldest public courses, opening in 1932, and is also widely viewed as one of the country’s finest. It boasts two 18-hole courses across undulating land just a kilometre from the city, as well as an 80-bay undercover driving range fitted with Trackman and other technology and a fabulous 18-hole mini-golf course with adjoining children’s playground and even a wedding pavilion.
The driving range recorded about 20 million balls hit in 2025 and in the 12-month period March 2025 to February 2026, 195,000 on-course rounds were played. That’s some doing. For reference, a busy nearby private club averages 60,000 to 70,000 per year.
And it’s not finished there. Wembley’s new general manager has some ideas for it herself. She would like Wembley to become a signatory to the R&A Women in Golf Charter – “I’d say we would be well positioned to do that” – and also to align Wembley with other Golf Australia programs such as MyGolf, Get into Golf and All Abilities clinics and events. Wembley already has a Paragolfer available for golfers with disability and works with the brilliant Empower Golf, Australia’s only NDIS provider for golf.
Martino’s personal philosophy is also part of her management style.
“My thing is when we find opportunities, we actually embrace them. I want to challenge how things have been done and get the staff thinking outside the box about ways we can evolve and improve. I view them as simple changes but ones than can have a big impact.”
It’s a full and busy life she leads. Beyond being at the helm of Wembley, and a busy mum to boot with all that entails, Martino is also a member of the PGA Vocational Member Council – this after some years on a number of various other PGA committees – and for the duration of her term (until 2028) she also sits on the board of the WA Golf Foundation.
And this September she will represent Australian in the Women’s PGA Cup for the second time.
“The team in 2022 was a phenomenal experience,” she says. “And what it is going to continue to do for women in the PGA makes it a very valuable event for the PGA of Australia to be involved in.”
By qualifying for the team as a vocational PGA member in tandem with being general manager at Wembley, Martino has bridged that early divide between pro golfer and club management. On her own terms, in her own way and within her own limits.
“It’s busy but I don’t feel stretched. It’s been a bit of a journey to work out what support structures I need to enable these sorts of things, but everything’s positive for us at the moment.
“Life’s good.”
NICOLE MARTINO AT A GLANCE
Nicole Martino is general manager of Wembley Golf Course in Perth, appointed in January 2026.
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A former elite amateur golfer and Pepperdine University collegiate player, she transitioned from playing ambitions into golf club management and leadership.
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She has held senior roles at Western Australian Golf Club and Golf Management Australia WA, and is one of the first Australian women to achieve the Certified Club Manager qualification through the Club Management Association of America.
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Her career has included leadership across junior development, women in golf initiatives and governance roles within the Australian golf industry.
