Club History
Our golf club has a long and proud history having commenced operation in October 1920.
We have a large membership currently exceeding 1,250 members and a golf and resort facility that is the envy of most.
Since our inception the golf course has undergone considerable change. It first was played as a 9-hole course on crown land now occupied predominantly by the Foreshore Caravan Park. In 1924 it moved to a new 9-hole course layout that straddled Spring Creek and was played predominantly in an east or west direction on land leased from local entrepreneur Alfred White.
In 1933 Alfred White agreed to sell the land he had leased the Club for a sum of 500 pounds. White never sought payment for the agreed 500-pound purchase and effectively gifted the land to the Club. Work then commenced on another new layout in the mid 1930’s before it opened for play in 1937, the same year the Club opened its first purpose-built Clubhouse located on the east side of Spring Creek. The new layout saw most holes run in either a south or north direction very similar to today’s layout on the front nine.
By the 1950’s the Members were anxious to increase the course to a full 18-hole layout, but they could not afford to do so. Thanks to some smart negotiating and a strong sense of generosity five members hatched a plan to purchase 123 acres of land to the west of the existing course. Led by Fred Vary and supported by Laurie Dean, Harold Humphrey, Dr Rupert Weaver and Milton Rowe they split this land in half, subdividing one half into 263 residential lots and selling the other half to the Club for 1,500 pounds (well below its market value).
They then donated five one acre lots to the Club along the Great Ocean Road which the Club subsequently sold for 300 pounds each, effectively making the extra land they purchased zero cost. It took two years to build the extra nine holes before the course opened as an 18-hole par 70 in October 1952. It still had the first hole played on the east side of Spring Creek alongside the then Clubhouse with the remaining holes on the west side of Spring Creek.
In 1957 the Club decided it needed to have its Clubhouse on land it owned rather than the existing arrangement where a tired and undersized Clubhouse was situated on crown land. They arranged to purchase the dining room used by athletes at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. Coinciding with this decision was yet another course change, this time seeing all holes located on the west side of Spring Creek. The new Clubhouse opened in December 1959 the same year the new layout commenced play.
Over subsequent years tweaks to the layout were undertaken but the focus was much more on the condition of the course than its layout.
Then in October 2008 the RACV purchased the Club and its facilities. They quickly undertook a multi-million makeover of the course and the development of the Resort complex and today we have a magnificent multi-purpose Resort to enjoy.
