History in the making: There are learnings from Gailes Golf Club’s first 100 years that the club wants to adapt for its future. 

The celebration of a centenary is naturally a time for reflection. A time to look back on the formative days, the milestones and moments that defined history and the changes that are cause for optimism for what the future holds.

August 9 will mark 100 years since Gailes Golf Club in Brisbane’s south-west was officially opened by then Queensland premier Ted Theodore, a club that has a proud history within the annals of Australian golf.

Perhaps its greatest claim to fame – other than a young pennant player by the name of Jason Day – is that it held the 1955 Australian Open won by South African legend Bobby Locke when flooding throughout Brisbane forced the Australian Golf Union to find a playable venue. It remains one of only three Queensland clubs to have hosted our national championship, yet that week is just a small part of the Gailes story.

The appointment of Dr H. Ellerton as inspector of Queensland Asylums and medical superintendent at the Hospital for the Insane at Goodna in 1909 would provide the foundation; his marriage to Florence Caldwell in 1916 ultimately the inspiration. Both Dr and Mrs Ellerton initially played their golf at Brisbane Golf Club until Mrs Ellerton suggested the doctor build a three-hole practice course adjacent to the hospital where he worked.

That initial seed of an idea sparked something within Dr Ellerton and by early 1923, he had received official approval for a public course and staged a local meeting to gauge interest in the formation of Goodna Golf Club. While some suggested the idea was such that he might need to be admitted as a patient to the hospital where he worked, on February 4, 1924, the inaugural meeting of Goodna Golf Club took place. The club would be re-named Gailes Golf Club in 1935 and may never have existed if not for the foresight of Mrs Ellerton.

“This is her time to shine,” says Vicki Mynott, a member of the Richlands Inala History Group and author of the book that documents Gailes’ first 100 years. “Previously, it wasn’t acknowledged that she was the kernel that started it, and she was obviously a really strong and likeable personality.”

COURSE CURRICULUM

The evolution of the Gailes golf course that Locke hailed as one of the best that he had played continues to this day. The club has converted four of its greens from grainy 328 Bermuda to the finer texture of the TifEagle strain that has become the turf du jour in recent years. 

The hilly terrain of the land on which the course is laid out has always been a feature, fairways that camber left and right and putting complexes that can repel approach shots in a variety of directions place a premium on golf
ball control.

While 2015 PGA champion Jason Day spent just a year playing pennants for Gailes, the complete test the course offers gave Matthew Guyatt the foundation to play on the PGA Tour of Australasia and internationally for close to a decade. Returning to Gailes two years ago as one of the club’s three PGA professionals, Guyatt first joined Gailes as a 14-year-old, the club where his father and two older brothers already played.

“This is where I learned how to truly play golf under all different conditions and environments and landscapes,” said Guyatt, who boasts top-10 finishes in both the Australian Open and Australian Masters.

“It’s got very challenging par 3s, it’s got ups and downs with elevation, it’s got side-slopes both left to right and right to left – ball above your feet, ball below your feet. It just forces you to play all the shot shapes.”

Although he admits the grain in the greens has made the Gailes pennant teams difficult to defeat on their home track, Guyatt is adamant that the conversion to TifEagle will only elevate the course further.

“It’s an exciting project for the club and one that in the long term will bring us a better quality putting surface and better-quality greens to play golf on,” he adds. “The four greens that we’ve got in play now are the four greens that are the most enjoyable to play on. We’re already seeing that they’re a better putting surface and we’ll get them rolling quicker than the 328.”

TIME TO RE-MEMBER

From the time the club was founded, membership and its connection to the club has been a primary focus. Your correspondent can attest to that, having been a Gailes member 20 years ago. Even Mynott, never a golfer and adamant that she has no intention of starting now, saw the community connection through her research for
the book.

“If people find a way in which they can contribute and be appreciated, then they’ll stay forever,” says Mynott, noting the strong influence that the volunteer group has had throughout Gailes’ history. “It’s a matter of finding a niche. There are people who lived for the club, and that’s a niche they found in their life.”

The way of the modern world makes establishing a sense of community even more challenging, yet perhaps never more important. The digital lives we lead makes genuine connections even more valuable and is why club president, Don Henry, is looking back for a way to take Gailes forward.

Before joining the club 38 years ago, Henry was first nominated by then president Bill Lewis and played his first two rounds as a member with Lewis and others. It was a way of connecting Henry to the club that he would like to see re-introduced.

“It would be good to integrate the membership so that more people did partake in after-round socialising,” Henry says. “I played a lot of rounds with Bill after he nominated me, and I met a lot of people that way. I’d encourage that to happen again.

“A lot of people join golf clubs and don’t even have a nominator, but when a new member comes to the club, I would like to see them introduced to an existing member who can then nominate them.

“The more people you know at the club, the better it is for everyone. That, to me, is one of the beneficial things that happened in our first 100 years.” 

THE DETAILS
Gailes Golf Club
Where: Wilruna St, Wacol QLD
Phone: (07) 3271 2333
Web: gailesgolf.com.au