LAKESIDE Golf Club at Lake Boga turns 100 this year and is throwing the biggest party in its very colourful history to celebrate – and everyone is invited.
Known affectionately by locals as Royal Lakeside, this remarkable volunteer run course is more than just 18 holes, it is the very heartbeat of the community.
A community which worked bloody hard – and long – to carve this challenging course out of the bush all those years ago.
And a community which to this day continues to commit hundreds of volunteer hours to its maintenance and improvement.
Club stalwart and North West Farmer correspondent Paul Bethune says the ‘Royal’ was proposed not long after World War I when a group of Tresco locals got together and agreed there was an urgent need for a local golf course.
“Initially there was a lot of hard, back-breaking work fighting through the Mallee scrub, the rabbits, the stinkwort and then the onion weed, just to set out those first nine holes,” Mr Bethune said.
“By 1959 the pressure was on to upgrade, so three more holes were added and the following year it became an 18-hole championship course.
“One of the local rules at the beginning was if you put in more than 20 hours of voluntary work for the upkeep and development of the course, you got your subs that year for free.
“Our beautiful course is cut into a bushland reserve, and it has wonderful natural timber, birdlife, colours and contours, as it winds itself around the edge of a salt lake.”
Royal Lakeside has hardly missed a beat since it opened – apart from an enforced break during World War II.
If someone was able to go back to those funding days, they might also be forgiven for thinking they had landed in another country.
There were no high-tech computer-designed clubs that can hit a ball into orbit (depending on which human has hold of the club).
It was all about handmade, and with very strange names for each one.
Today you might have a two wood, back then it was a brassie. Your three wood was a spoon, and if you breached for your two iron your caddy would have handed you a cleek.
The five iron was a jigger, the seven a mashie, and when you got in close, the niblick (nine iron) was your weapon of choice.
In its first year the club had 90 members and hosted a staggering 400 entries for its first tournament.
Local farmer Gervase Carre Liddell was the course designer – and it was just one of many he would help set up across the region.
His intimate knowledge of the layout also gave him the inside running when it came to playing – he would win the first four club championships.
He was often heard commenting “farming is my livelihood, but golf is my game”.
More recently Royal Lakeside has become famous for its country hospitality.
Players come from far and wide, and say they are here for the golf – but it is pretty well accepted the lunches and afternoon tea spreads put on by the local ladies make the club the place to be.
The other constant across the past century is that core group of dedicated, diehard local volunteers who put in so much.
Mr Bethune said this might still be a humble, small club, “but its locals have continued to come willingly to invest their time for all 100 years because it adds value to them, and others – and that is the very essence of community”.
“To celebrate our centenary, we are having a serious party, and you don’t have to be a golfer to attend,” he said.
“It’s a community event at the Lake Boga Community Centre on Saturday, August 17, where there will be live music, good food and lots of golf stories that will get more and more amazing – and less believable – as the night goes on.
“On the same weekend, on both Saturday and Sunday, the club is running a four-person Ambrose tournament, with more than $2500 in prizemoney up for grabs, so get a team together and come and play for one day, both days, or just come to the dinner.
“The course is in perfect condition, the bar and sherry shacks will be well stocked, the competition will be strong – and you won’t get a chance like this for at least another 100 years.”
For more information or to book, contact Adam Boys on 0417 994 645 or Lois Heil on 0488 272 139.
