Perched on Point Bunbry, Apollo Bay Golf Club holds a commanding coastal position only a few hundred metres from the town’s centre and local port.
The golf course offers windswept links-style playing conditions, sublime ocean views which most city courses can only dream and has been there since 1923.
“A farmer who agisted his cows on the land formed the greens and put wire fences around them to keep the cows off; the cows managed the fairways,” says membership manager, vice president and nine-time Club champion Kerryn Wagstaff.
“There was a bathing box on Point Bunbry for the nuns and a rifle range on the area covered by the sixth & seventh fairways.”
Today, the town of Apollo Bay normally thrives with tourists during summer holidays, but patronage on the golf course over the same period isn’t what it was a decade ago.
“Every day, the whole tee would be covered in people waiting to tee off, but now, you don’t even wait very long,” Wagstaff says.
If you’re reporting to the tee in early January, chances are, there’ll be a Club volunteer inside the starter’s hut, however, for 11 or so months of the year, Apollo Bay runs a classic honesty box system.
Rumour has it that, many years ago, a group of disgruntled fishermen got on the turps after an unsuccessful outing and broke into the honesty box in search of cash which, unfortunately for them, was under lock and key at another location.
The starter's hut inside Apollo Bay's clubhouse.
For $25, adults can play all day and buggies are free.
Golfers shirking payment isn’t a major problem for the Golf Club.
A strong example was set in the 1980s by a former captain - known locally as ‘The Sheriff’ - who played debt collector to any green fee dodgers.
“He used to get out there around the course and yell at people and demand to see their receipts,” Wagstaff remembers.
Two greenkeepers - one full-time and one part-time - maintain Apollo Bay’s playing surfaces. They’re aided by a monthly member working bee though sometimes only two or three locals will turn up.
The view of the first green from near the clubhouse.
The Club has an ‘Outstanding Performance of the Year’ award which doesn’t always go to accomplished golfers. According to club folklore, the honour once went to a member who needed 28 shots to escape the normally innocent greenside bunker on the par-three opening hole. “[He] finished the round in spite of his bad start which is what made the performance more remarkable,” Wagstaff says.
Apollo Bay has close to 300 members and a decent portion are ‘country’ members from Melbourne who’ve proven tough to beat in the Club’s Open Championship which is held on the Queen’s Birthday June long weekend and is open to non-members.
The clubhouse has been off-limits for much of 2020 because of the pandemic, but when it’s open, the beer taps flow from the ‘George Harrison Bar’, which is named after a life member who volunteered to run the bar for two decades.
“As far as I know, he is not at all musical,” Wagstaff says.
“The publican of the Ballarat Hotel supplied our first clubhouse which was his sausage room; it is now the clubhouse kitchen.”
The third hole plays right up beside the coastline.
Apollo Bay has struggled to attract young people to play though youthful backpackers have been known to camp on the clubhouse deck to avoid wind. Others have set up more permanent digs.
“Another guy, actually, he was living under the trees beside our eighth green,” Wagstaff says.
“He had a tent. You’d be surprised what we find on this course.”
“All the time, [tourists] come and play on the second green too. They go and buy fish and chips or something and then have their meal on the green.”
You're best to bring a set of golf clubs if you fancy a wander around Apollo Bay Golf Club.
