Country Courses

Today’s post comes from Matt and Tony of SA Golfing Adventure who endeavouring to play all 158 golf courses in South Australia.

I was trying to think of some of the most interesting things we have encountered on our trip so far and whilst there are some very nice courses in the city or in larger towns, it is the courses in the middle of nowhere which have given us some of our best stories. These courses show the real spirit of golf, they maintain a course on the support of the local community and have struggled through many a year. Some of these courses don’t even have any grass on them, Morgan in the Riverland being a perfect example.

So here’s a list of things we have found on golf courses, that most city golfing folk would never have seen before:

• Wire around the scrapes of many rural courses to keep sheep from entering the scrape.
• Perfectly square scrapes at Georgetown.
• Fantastic open days where your entry fee includes a cooked steak lunch at Yankalilla.
• The sand scrapes at Padthway where the locals offer you free beer after your round
• Rough left untouched for many years at Port Macdonnell, so deep that you lose your feet in it.
• The first hole at Port Victoria where a wayward shot will end up on the boat ramp.
• Playing on only dirt at Morgan, where apparently grass does not grow

And our personal favourite…

• Huge pieces of infrastructure through the course at Georgetown, including crossing the famous Murray River pipeline on numerous occasions. The same pipeline ships water all across the whole state.

We’ve recently travelled to the Yorke Peninsula and played 15 courses in 6 days. All of these places are very much isolated and we uncovered yet more country fol course gems.

Follow our journey, blogs and reviews at www.sagolfadventure.com.