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SPRINGFIELD — John Wilkinson dreams of Vegemite and hears the '80s pop hit "Down Under" every time his cell phone rings.

Even after years in the United States, Wilkinson's Australian accent is as thick as the worst rough at Windy Knoll Golf Club.

Wilkinson is Aussie through and through, but last winter, he passed up a job in his home country to become the head pro at Windy Knoll when Jim Neff left.

The story started when Wilkinson returned to Australia last year to visit his ailing father, Cyril, who will turn 90 this summer.

His father wasn't a good golfer, Wilkinson admitted, but he got his son into a game that has been a big part of his life for 45 years.

"The fondest memories I'll ever take to my grave were the times I walked around Royal Queensland (a golf club in Brisbane) with my dad," Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson started out as a caddy for his dad. He remembered his dad always struggled with the water hazard on the third hole.

"I used to get him the raggiest old ball you'd ever seen," Wilkinson said, "and he'd pop it up on the tee, and, bang, he'd hit it in the water. I'd have a bit of a giggle, and I never said anything."

Finally, when he was 11, Wilkinson got a chance to play with his dad.

"I'd better get my water ball," Wilkinson's father said as they reached the third hole.

"Wouldn't it be easier to hit it on the green?" Wilkinson asked him. "That's what I try to do. I don't worry about the water."

"For some unknown reason, you make a heck of a lot of sense," his father said and started finding the green on No. 3 after that.

"He may have learned something from a very inept 11-year-old," Wilkinson said, "but it's a lesson that's so true. That's what people do. They focus so much on the peripheral things."

Instead, Wilkinson said, golfers should be thinking, "There's the lake. There's the hole. All I've got to do is hit it there."

Wilkinson's life decision last year wasn't so easy. He and his wife, Kelly, have five kids — ages 9, 11, 15, 17 and 19 — and Wilkinson said the three youngest ones would have moved to Australia with their parents if he had taken the job offered to him there.

Wilkinson had returned to Springfield when he got the job offer from Australia. They gave him 72 hours to think about it, and it was during that time that Windy Knoll asked him to be its head pro. Prior to Neff leaving, Wilkinson had been a teaching pro at Windy Knoll.

Wilkinson and his wife talked it over, and they decided to stick with Ohio. The improvements being made at Windy Knoll make it an exciting time for the course, and that had something to do with the decision.

Windy Knoll, a public course, has improved its driving range and restructured the 10th and 18th holes. It has also quadrupled the size of the Stables Grill, adding two outdoor porches, nine televisions, fireplaces and wireless internet access.

"This is a great golf course," Wilkinson said. "People really under-rank this as a golf track, as far as the challenges of it."

Wilkinson may miss the Royal Queensland course, where he grew up playing with the likes of Greg Norman and Ian Baker-Finch, but he finds ways to stay in touch with the Land Down Under.

"I get on this thing called coastalwatch.com, because I was an old surfer," he said. "I get a look at the beaches I used to surf every day. I can't help it. It's nice. It feels like I'm at home."

His dad is still struggling with his health, Wilkinson said, but he's hanging in there.

"The hardest part was leaving that last day," Wilkinson said. "I had made a decision that this may be the last time I ever see him. That was the hard part. Now that I had the opportunity to go back and spend every day with him and also with my ma, it was great. I'd never change a thing."