Gailes Golf Club
Australia, Queensland, Brisbane
From the club website:
Goodna Golf Club (later to be known as Gailes Golf Club) was established in February 1924 by 30 friends and the first 9 hole card showed course of 3300 yards starting with a par four of 450 yards and the 9 ending with a par 5 of 612 yards. The course went to 18 holes in 1929 with a back nine of 3303 yards.
Gailes Golf Club has hosted a number of prestigious tournaments; the most notable of these was the 1955 Australian Open won by South African Bobby Locke with a 4 round total of 290. The Club has also hosted an Australian Amateur in 1972, 5 Queensland Opens, as well as 1 Queensland Amateur title, 1 Australian Senior Amateur title in 1999 won by Tony Gresham from our own Don Fardon (Senior).
Playing Surfaces
The golf course for many years as was the case in Queensland was surfaced with couch grass but for the last 20 or so years has employed the use of 328 grass on the greens Wintergreen on the fairways and tees. Our fairways surfaces are second to none as a result of the work of our Course Superintendent.
Older members of the club will remember Gailes as a course with many more bunkers than presently exist at the present time. It is believed that the course had approximately 184 bunkers that were maintained by patients from the adjacent hospital facility. A 16 mm film produced many years ago by an Associate member of the club (showing then Member, the legendary Jack Coogan playing 9 holes on the course), clearly shows nests of bunkers on the inside dogleg on Hole 5 and church pew like bunkers (as Oakmont in the USA) between holes 13 and 14. Today, the course has only approximately 69 bunkers, the result of ever increasing maintenance costs, but beware, true skill is required if you want to proceed unscathed to your next shot.