What was the first course you ever played ?

O.K. I'm not really after a bunch of chatting between friends or a heap of small talk. All I want is the first course you ever played & a description of 1 or 2 of the better holes. It doesn't matter how good or bad the course was, I'm sure we can all find some redeeming factors about the course that started us all on this odyssey that is a golfing life.

I'll start.

The first time I played golf was at Hurstville golf course. A council course in southern Sydney. It's 18 holes now, but back then it was 15 holes (front 9, back 6). The front 9 was reasonable for a council course.

The 4th was a nice par 3. You hit off from a tee that was on a large hill, across a valley to the green that was also on a large hill slightly higher than the tee. The green was small & heavily sloped from back to front. Anything short rolled back into the valley, anything right rolled into another deep depression, anything left caught the bush & over the back was death due to the heavily sloping green. It played at approx. 185m from the tips, but has been shortened to about 155m as it was too difficult for the level of player the course attracted. It's ashame, because when you flushed a 4 iron & watched the ball sail over the valley & onto the green there was no better feeling.

The first course i ever played was Horton Park. Was 12 or 13 and remember nothing about it except for the score 144, and that i played with my mum. Never played again for about 3 yrs.

There was nothing about the course that started me in golf. It was where my parents were members, and it was close to home. In fact the reason i started playing full time was mostly jealousy. I got sick of surfing during winter cos it was too cold, and when i heard my little brother was doing well in the juniors, i couldnt bear it if he was better than me at something.

I honestly cant remember what inspired me to keep goinghard at it. played almost a year every day before i could break 100. i think it was hanging around older people (like 18-20's) that i liked so much.

Apart from playing the Par 3 track at Bulimba, my first real courses were when I was about 10 or 11 and we used to caravan holiday in Northern NSW.
I used to love playing these with my dad, and still have fond memories of Ballina, Coffs, Nambucca heads and Port Macquarie. Although I really don't remember much about the courses themselves.
I do however remember the massive break through in my swing when I was about 11, and dad convinced me to move my right hand more over the top. To my disbelief I was able to get the ball consistantly airborn.

Ballarat, my original home club. Got lessons from the late pro Lyndsay Newlyn there, as well as an uncle of mine. Initially, loved the ability to just spend time alone for a few hours rather than preferring any holes over others. Hated the winter chugging through the ankle deep mud it used to have.

A par three public course at Albert Park, just adjacent to the lake. For those that know the area, it was situated at the north west part of the park, and along the west side of the lake, opposite the driving range. It's now been ploughed into park land.

There was a collection of small to medium length par threes, which I can't remember too much about. Council run, shallow bunkers and flat greens. I recall two things about the round, and one other point about the course.

I was around seven when I first played there, with my younger brother and dad. I have absolutely no idea why my dad took us. He doesn't particularly like golf. To make things worse, he clubbed me wrong on the first tee. I hit it long, richocheted off a tree and onto the green.

Oh yeah, one of my mates played a game there once with a girl he liked, and he said, I think that was the day I knew I'd marry her.

Sad to think the course is now gone.

MM

A friend took me along to Captain Cook golf course when I was in high school. It's a 9-hole par-3 course, at Sylvania Waters in Sydney, where the holes range in length from 50m (!!) to about 120m. Greens were small and crappy, no bunkers, but you had to cross little creeks and canals about 12 times.

I really enjoyed playing there and would go after school for a quick game quite often. The first "real" 18-hole course I played at was Kareela - it was local and easy to get to when you don't have a car.

My first game was at Elsternwick. I loved that it was short. My Mum dropped me off during the school holidays and gave me enough money to play all day. I think I played my first 20 games at Elsternwick before I walked on another golf course. Then I went to the 1987 Australian Open at Royal Melbourne 8O That is when I wanted to see more.

Got lessons from the late pro Lyndsay Newlyn there, as well as an uncle of mine.

Neil? Not a bad coach to have in the family.

Wynnum Golf Club, when I was about 14. Used to spend all my school holidays there with rok29, hitting balls in the nets, the practice fairway, the putting green and collecting them with our toes from the (disgusting) creek. We'd sneek onto the course pre-dawn to try and evade the course ranger.

As a kid, that place seemed a monster... :roll:

I can't really remember my first full round of golf. It may have been at Horton Park, Maroochydore.
Although, when I was little I did use to sneak on to the Briely Mental Hospital Golf Course in Warrnambool (first of many visits to a mental hospital :? :roll: ), and play a couple of holes.

Neil? Not a bad coach to have in the family.

The family name is a curse when people expect me to show some pedigree matching the top few players in my family. When I was a junior, I wouldn't have made a six man pennant team of Titheridge family members when I was off 10.

My first game was at Keperra GC many years ago, can't remember much about the course and, although my score was about 110 I was hooked on the game from that day on.

Albert park par 3 course, at night when they used to have it lit up at night for play..

Marrickville Golf Course - some nice par 3s and some shocking par 4s . It was my first love , not anymore :wink:

My first game of golf was on a public course in Perth (Mt something, overlooking the Swan River as it headed towards Freo).

My first serious efforts were on the Yarra Bend public course in Melb. I would play 9 or so holes after work (I was living nearby, in Clifton Hill). I had a set of clubs that I had inherited (even irons and wood woods). I remember buying the odd irons from the ACTU's Bourkes discount store on the corner of Lonsdale & Elizabeth Sts. I bought a 3 wood, and on the 3rd shot that I played with it I lost it: the 6th tee at Yarra Bend is right alongside the Yarra River. I wasn't playing with a glove then, and the club slipped out of my hand at the end of the swing and (I can still see it now) spun end over end (like the bone in the transition scene in Kubrick's 2001) into the Yarra. I scrambled down the bank to get my new club but it had sunk into the depths. Some pr!ck glanced down over the bank and said "Mind if I play through."

My first game was at Lane Cove, a 9 holer.
Things that stick in my mind -4th hole (?) a par 3, over DEEP gully, to a two tier green.
A short hole (80m ish) that 'killed' me for ages, lost count of how many balls I put into that gully.
Also my first ever birdie was on the 9th.

Even long term residents or former residents of Wollongong won't recall an all par 3 18 hole goat track called Figtree. It only existed for a couple of years in the late 60's. It's now a caravan park.

My dad took me there when I was about 9 or 10 for my first experience of golf. I can't actually remember it, but I do recall being excited to get a 6 or 7 club beginners set of second hand clubs for Christmas when I was 10. I've still got a card from Figtree (I shot 99, I wonder if it was the first time I ever broke 100?).

My first real golf was at Port Kembla, when I was 12. A couple of holes on the back nine have changes, but apart from the trees being a lot higher in places its the same course today as it was 30 years ago.

This thread made me go through my golf card collection. Many of them date from the 70's. I might have a look at the Collectibles section to see if any of them are likely to be worth anything.

jimandr,

Unfortunately, probably not. I still have an old 12,000 card collection, including most of the world's top 40-50 courses. Aparty from those signed by dead legends, the sum of the collection has little financial value.

I even have The Masters Tournament cards from every year from 1978 to 1991, in addition to the last three different evolutions of just the plain and simple Augusta National card.

My prized posessions are a pair of mint condition (used unfortunately) cards from Oakmont in the first decade it opened, and an early Prairie Dunes card filled in and signed by Perry Maxwell as the player's marker.

My Dad took me to Maldon sandscrapes in central Victoria while holidaying as probably a 12 year old kid. All I can remember is that I hit my 1st tee shot an absolute mile for a tall lanky fella all skin and bones. I was hooked from that moment. We never did find that ball, although I did eventually come to appreciate that it wasn't necessarily how far, rather how straight it travels.

My first game was on a 9 holer, Frankston Muni before they moved it out to the old tip at Centennial Park. The old course started off with a card wrecker dog-leg long par 4 (it seemed 480 yards uphill when you were a skinny 13 yo, but I'm not sure of the yardage) and then finished with 3 par 3's. With caddying for dad at Long Island from the age of 11 I was already hooked and had a putt-putt course in the backyard but it took a couple of years to get on the real thing.

My first argument with a golf course was Chatswood in Sydney's north. It hasn't really changed much since, but it has been manicured a little.

For a long time Chatswood was the toughest course in the world, as there is little relief with water on surprisingly many holes. The most fearful was (is) the 10th - if you miss to the right you are faced going down the 9th fairway, and having your ball a good 30-40 metres UNDER the green, playing through bushland. The smartest course of action is to play backwards for 100 metres to the junction where the fairways split. And of course, being young you would try and drag a buggy up through the vertical rugged terrain, only for it to go ar$e-over sending clubs, balls, buckets and tees sprawling back down the hill.

My first ever really well struck golf shot? On the 6th - it would barely be 110m. When i was starting i would use the (hired) 3-wood - i mean it would hit the ball the furtherest along the ground. It was the first shot i really ever crushed - it was still going up, up, up when it passed the green. It would have collected one of the houses across the road (or beyond) - needless to say i never went and looked for it :oops: My brother nearly had an accident as he looked on hysterically.

My first ever game of golf was at Melton Valley Golf club in victoria when i started playing golf 4 years ago. it was a really nice track. havent played that course in a long time now but last time i went there they were going through some renevations. Still remember the score i shot to a nice 108.

Framlingham Golf Course

I think my Grandfather used to let me have a few hits when he took me out on Waverley (private) in Melbourne to caddie for him teeing off at sparrow's f@rt back in the late '70s. First real game was at a course I think now is on its last legs - Hume Country Golf Club in Albury. Don't remember the score as it was 20-25 years ago but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a higher cricket score from me that year...

I played my first ever game (9 Holes) at Royal Park Golf Course in Melbourne when I was about 14. Scored in the high 50's.

My Dad purchased a second hand set of clubs for me, from a bloke who used to live over the back fence from us.