Coolamatong Golf Club

This writers home course is located on the way from Canberra to the NSW snowy mountains, just outside the small snowy country town of Berridale.

I've been a member for a few years now.

Here's an extract from the clubs website

"The Club had its origins in the  Golf Club which was formed at a public meeting in 1952

When Don Suthern retired from the Police force to his home town of Berridale, he was disappointed

that there was no local golf course. He helped to organise a public meeting, which was convened by Lorna Peel at the Berridale Hotel on the 28th September 1952.

A large number of people attended and a steering committee was formed to investigate suitable sites for the Berridale Golf Club. Don Suthern, Eric Thorpe and Jack Harvey formed the Steering Committee.

One of the sites considered was behind O’Brien’s store where a race track then existed.

At a subsequent meeting on the 15th November 1952 the construction of a golf course was given

the go-ahead on land donated by Jock McFarlane of Coolamatong. With the enthusiastic support

of members work began on this site, which fronted the main road.

The golf course extension to 18 holes was officially opened in April 1962, but it still had sand greens. The new improved course was tested by four experienced golfers, Ron Jamieson, Noel Bartell (the state  as amateur champion) Flora Hoskin and Bill Wallace, and passed with flying colours.!

The next major change to the course was the construction of the grass greens. Work started in 1991, but was not finished until 1996 as there were many problems involving water, soil and grass seed. "

My close friends and I thought about joining a club in Canberra itself, but the amount of time we get to play is only 5 or 6 months due to football commitments in the winter months, and the Canberra courses all charge over $1000, plus joining fees.

Coolamatong is $300 as a country member.

We joined so we could get out of town and see the country side and enjoy the tranquility that the course provides. We take a couple of beers, take 5 hours to play, even though we could play the course in 2.5, its our little escape from the city life. Then lunch and a beer at the local Hotel and home we come. We share the driving around so everyone gets a turn at having a few beers.

The course is the best out of Canberra in a 1hour radius.

Its routing is fairly basic given the small parcel of land we have at our disposal, but we enjoy this fact.

We've said many times if we won the lotto we would place this there and add this there, but these are only dreams.

The course has some very long holes and as the course is volunteer orientated regarding grounds keeping the ball doesn't bounce on as it does on other courses.

We don't have too much elevation change, it's a fairly flat course, sadly only 1 bunker on the 18th, and water comes into play on holes 4,6,12,16 only.

Small tradition country course green complexes meet the golfer so accuracy is key, our greens are usually slow so you have to pitch as close to the pin as possible to score well.

We love our course and if we had the money we would be able to help get the course looking better with things like better tee boxes, signage, sand buckets, rubbish bins, cart paths, green keeping equipment.

But we're happy with how it is in the meantime.