iii) The First Course: The Golf Park
Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the Ipswich Golf Club in its entire 100-year history was its very first one: finding a site and then turning a rough horse paddock into some semblance of a golf course without the aid of modern machinery - all in less than four weeks.
The public meeting to form the club was held on a Tuesday evening, 7th September, and a small committee was instructed to start looking for a site. The first practice was on Saturday 2nd October and the first day of competition was Saturday 3rd November. Fast work indeed!
The original layout was 9 holes and as the first club house was built near the drill hall, this was probably close to where the members teed off.
The course seems to have been very rough at first, scarcely different from its original appearance as a grazing paddock. A newspaper article in July 1898 said that Mr Wearne had played a 9-hole round in 55 which was very good "considering the state of the ground on which there has been practically no improvements." Certainly, the first sight of the Brisbane club’s well-kept links at Chelmer aroused strong feelings of envy.
When the Brisbane golfers paid their return visit to Ipswich in September 1898, they were complimentary. They said the Ipswich course was excellent, with long holes and numerous, well-placed hazards. The only drawback was that some putting greens required levelling. The visitors also suggested that a flag should be placed on the park fence between the 3rd and 4th holes as an obstacle. Players were required to "cross and recross the fence" to get past it. This was tried and it apparently made this part of the course more interesting.
At this time, an 18-hole double round on the Ipswich course was described as being three miles, 70 yards long and the record was 99, held by Mr Wearne.
The following year, Brisbane suffered its first defeat when it played a combined Ipswich-Toowoomba side on the Ipswich links. The Ipswich course was described as "interesting" and the putting greens as "small and of a most fiery description".
In 1903, golf expert Carnegie Clark designed the original layout for Brisbane’s Yeerongpilly Course. Clark also visited Ipswich where he found the Club using unsatisfactory chipped greens; he advised that these should be replaced with grass greens.
The Club took his advice and let a contract to level the black soil ground, plant it with couch grass and enclose the areas with a wire fence. The greens were taken over from the contractor in May 1904 and were considered a wonderful improvement, although there were some fears about whether they would hold up under prolonged dry weather. The Club captain R.H. Wearne set a record of 44 for the 9 holes. His previous best was 45 several years earlier.
An experiment as a municipal course
In the 1920s, the standard of the course was still low. It was considered "antiquated" with rough tees and small enclosed greens. It was also described as "a cow pasture", a true statement as animals were still allowed to graze there.
Golf was increasing in popularity and the quality of the local course was seen as a matter of civic pride - it was reported that many golfers would not come to Ipswich to play because of the poor quality of the links. In 1923, the Council’s Parks Committee and a sub-committee of the Golf Club proposed that the course should be "municipalised", following the example of several clubs in England. It involved the Club handing over all improvements except the clubhouse and paying annual subscriptions; in return, the Council would care for the course and bring it up to standard.
It seemed a good idea at the time, but it didn’t work. Within a year, members were complaining that the greens had not improved and that Council employees had cut saucer-shaped depressions around the tins on two holes, indicating a lack of understanding of golf.
In 1926, a deputation visited Ipswich City Council to complain that Parks Curator Mr Turley was too busy to supervise the workmen, the greens were not being looked after correctly, too much time was being spent removing manure from the course and a new mower was needed. The Council had promised to install water but this had not been carried out until very late in the season and the job had not been completed. The Council, still keen to have a high-quality links in the city, was very helpful. The Club professional Peter Porter was employed by Council to supervise the course for three months beginning 1st January 1927. The Club was instructed to buy a new mower and the Council promised to reimburse the cost when possible. And most importantly, no further grazing leases were to be made. This concession meant that the fences could be removed from the greens and work could be carried out on fairways, knowing that horses and cows would not undo all the good work.
The Club by this time had more than 100 members and, with the course back under its own control, decided it was time to bring it up to first-class standard. It commissioned an inspection and report from Mr Black, the greenkeeper at the Royal Queensland Golf Club, and a program of improvements was commenced including extending the greens and generally beautifying the area.
An additional short course was developed in 1928, apparently used by the Associates. Early in the season, it was still a little rough and work was under way to try to mow all of the fairways. Some areas could not be tackled by the mowers, and the club considered employing a man with a scythe to cut the long grass on hills.
Although improvements had definitely been achieved, there may have been some bias in the club’s own assessment of its "first-class" status. When Ipswich played Sandy Gallop in May of 1928, both clubs wrote their weekly notes in the newspaper and the two accounts are somewhat contradictory. According to "Glory Iron" of Ipswich, visitors expressed surprise at the great improvement - the greens were in "perfect order" while the fairways were "fairly satisfactory". However, according to "Sandy" of the rival club, most of the Sandy Gallop players left balls on the Ipswich links because they were "not in the best condition for play." Perhaps this was just sour grapes because Sandy Gallop lost the day!
The Club did discover one disadvantage of not having stock on the course: the grass in the rough grew very long. In 1929, members who lost balls in the long grass simply set fire to the grass. The committee became very irritated by this and demanded that members leave burning off to them.
An 18-hole course at last
Steady improvements continued and in 1931, the Club formally leased its area of land from the Council for a period of 21 years. Although the effects of the Great Depression were being felt, the long-awaited 18-hole course was opened on June 25, 1932 by Mayor O. Perry with a drive down the first fairway.
The round out had a distance of 2864 yards with a bogey of 37; the round in distance was 2766 yards, bogey 35 - total distance 5630 yards, bogey 72.
Although more work still had to be done, the new layout was a great boost to the spirits of members. One of them was moved to declare that "A golf course, properly constructed, is a thing of beauty".
In December 1933, a dinner was held at the Club-House for the first time. One of the speakers was well-known Ipswich architect and Club patron George Brockwell Gill who said: "The course itself is a beauty spot and it is situated in the most picturesque surroundings. Ipswich people possibly are inclined to take it too much for granted, but visitors are fascinated by the appearance of the links and the beauty of the scenery to be viewed from the various vantage points."
The course continued to improve gradually and during the Jubilee celebrations in 1947, Ossie Walker (the former Club professional) commented that he liked the course. The green surfaces were good and the layout splendid for the restricted area. On the negative side, he thought the fairways needed to be built up by light top dressing and thought that some greens were too small, particularly where there were two grasses of different textures within 10 feet of the pin.
However, by this time, the Club’s occupation of the old course was nearly at its end.
Yarns - old course
Jubilee yarns: At the jubilee celebrations in 1947, Dr Tom Cooney recalled that when he first joined the Club, the course had very narrow fairways bordered by long grass. He said that on one occasion, a player had put his clubs down while he looked for a ball - then took half an hour to find his clubs again. At the same function, Patron Bill Halley said the grass was so thick that "a cricket could not chirp in it". George Brockwell Gill, the club’s oldest member, remembered stock grazing on the course and said it used to be very frustrating when a nice mashie shot was spoiled because the ball hit a horse.
Scion Kop: The 2nd hole at the old course was known as Scion Kop. This name comes from a famous battle fought in January 1900 during the Boer War in South Africa as part of an attempt to relieve the town of Ladysmith. The British lost 1750 men either killed or wounded on the steep, rock-strewn slope of Scion Kop and this made a deep impression on the public.
Golf notes by "He", QT 24 Oct 1929: Another fault evident on Saturday was the choice of clubs for a particular shot approaching Scion Kop. One player broke a good wood on it when a topping shot with an iron was obviously the correct thing. The only dangerous part of a snake is its head. The idea then is to excite the snake’s curiosity. The player takes a comfortable stance, keeping the eye firmly fixed on the upraised head and strikes as for a high teed ball. A clean follow through saves making a mess.
Comments are closed.