End of an era for beloved local golf club

After 59 years as a social golfing hub within the rural city, the flags are coming out of the Tarrawingee Golf Club sand scrapes for the last time. The proud club announced it would cease operation at the end of the year due to declining members and participation. As the days count down on golf within the small community, club president Leo McCoy said it would be remembered for its hardworking, unpretentious spirit—and the deep friendships it forged. “It’s been a good club to be involved with, the people are what makes it,” he said. “The closer it gets the more it starts to hit home a bit, it’s a bit sad, but I suppose we’ve got to face reality.” Tucked away beside the Great Alpine Road behind the community hall, the club has been a mecca for social golf and community gatherings in the area for almost six decades. Ladies captain Toni Wilson, daughter of the club’s inaugural president Peter Nolan, said after the North Eastern Car Club ceased operation of the Tarrawingee Racing Circuit in 1965, a few locals wanted to keep the large area of the reserve current and working. “They got together and decided that a golf course would be alright,” she said. “Bill McCormick, Des McCormick, my father Pete Nolan and Dave Morris were a few of them, they called a meeting in 1966 at the hall, and it started from there. “They decided to form a golf club.” The idea would prove popular among the community with the small club reaching as many as 120 plus members in its heyday, attracting social golfers from Eldorado, Milawa and Wangaratta. “We had a great number of members when it first started, because of the price of membership, other places were more expensive to go to, and it was just a good place to come to when you weren’t a serious golfer, but you wanted a bit of exercise,” Wilson said. “It was a very friendly place… it’s been a bit of a local community proposition.” While the course had its particular appeal in its slightly narrower fairways, secretary Ken Miller said it was always the people at the club that brought him back and the lasting friendships he made. “When you came out to play here, you didn’t know who you were playing with so you got to play with somebody different every week,” he said. “I think with some of the bigger clubs people tend to play in their groups but here the captain would sort out the cards and put you with people you wouldn’t normally play with, so you get to meet them and enhances the friendships between players. “You got to meet everybody at the club and you got to meet socially afterwards.” The club had also found success on the course winning 17 North Eastern District Golf Association regional pennants in its history. McCoy played in nearly all of them, and said he was proud looking back on them, and was always reminded of the ones he missed. “I pulled out of a couple of them, and I was told never to do that again,” he said. “People used to always talk about their handicaps and we’d say ‘how about you come play at Tarrawingee’. “We go out on other courses and we had a ball on the wider fairways.” Throughout the years the club had a strong junior representation on Saturday mornings and even produced a pro golfer in Brad Lamb, who began his career as a junior champion at Tarrawingee. In the end, Miller said the weekly course maintenance became too taxing for its regular members who had served as volunteers for decades and a lack of new people coming through. McCoy has held an executive position at the club since 2000 and Miller has been in one in almost all of those years. The club’s youngest men’s member is its captain since 2011 Angelo Garraffo, at the spritely age of 69. “Out at Tarrawingee the members have to do everything, we do the scrapes, we do the mowing, a storm comes through and blows trees over we’ve got to clean that up,” Miler said. “It’ll be good to go to a club and just play golf, not have to worry about the admin side of things and the work around the course.” Miller said his proudest achievement in his 30-plus years with the club came just a week ago, being awarded life membership. As the small but mighty club invites the community and its former members for its final farewell round before Christmas, for McCoy the sentiment is bittersweet, but clear. “The friendships we made out here, they will stay with us forever,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed my time out here I must say that.” The Tarrawingee Recreation Reserve committee will take control of maintaining the area which makes the course, with the golf club donating their machinery.

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