Sport
5 October, 2024
Celebrating 100 years
THE Avoca Ladies Golf Club members celebrated 100 years on Sunday.
THE Avoca Ladies Golf Club members celebrated 100 years on Sunday.
President Carmel Briody welcomes 24 present and past members before handing over to club stalwart Melva Burns who joined the club in 1960 and has been a continuous member for 64 years.
In usual Melva style, she started off her reminiscing with a joke which brought many a chuckle.
Melva talked of the old clubhouse, a weatherboard building across the road from the present clubrooms. It was very basic, a copper out the back was thought to heat the hot water.
Melva’s mother-in-law Alice Burns played golf well before Melva and told her daughter-in-law that the layout of the course was completely different.
The course had a lagoon and on playing days, a few young lads would hang around waiting for any balls to go into the lagoon (the young entrepreneurs had a code of practice and would shout S to each other if it was known that the player would not pay to have their ball retrieved. The S stood for stomp, this meant they would stomp on the ball so it went into the mud and after everyone left, they would retrieve the balls and then sell them).
The club purchased the paddock known as ‘Wardlaws’ and set up the 6th, 7th and 8th holes and leased Barkers paddock before purchasing it which became the 4th and 5th holes.
A new and still current clubhouse was built in the mid sixties and the ladies thought they had landed in the lap of luxury.
Melva recalls that debentures were called to help finance the new clubhouse and the project went ahead.
The lady golfers had enough members to play three grades in A, B and Forbes Gummo (for the higher handicap players) pennant competition on Wednesdays as the club prospered.
The ladies decided to purchase club skirts and jumpers, and everyone thought they were pretty sharp when setting off to play pennant.
Thel Coghlan had a variety of uniforms on show at last weekend’s anniversary.
The golf and bowls club amalgamated after the new clubhouse was built and continue to work together under the one banner.
2024 Captain Lorraine Gollop (and the only female life member of the club) then shared memories of her involvement with the club, the trips away and the stage plays they participated in, which brought about laughter and reminiscing from some of the older members.
Lorraine Gollop and Alison Rainford (Alison has also been a stalwart of the club holding position of president on more than one occasion, also president of the Ballarat & District Golf Association) planted a Camelia bush at the front of the clubhouse and a plaque will be placed to commemorate the anniversary for the years to come.
Melva Burns was then asked to cut the cake, and everyone raised a glass of bubbly to celebrate the occasion.
Afternoon tea was then enjoyed by all amongst a lot of reminiscing and laughter to top off a great afternoon.