Founded in the late 19th century, Brisbane’s oldest golf club boasts an honour board adorned with the names of all-time greats who have won club and significant amateur events, including the likes of Norman Von Nida and Frank Phillips.
Meanwhile, 2022 Open Champion Cameron Smith, Maverick Antcliff and 2024 Champions Tour rookies Michael Wright and Cameron Percy provide prominent representation from the modern era.
The club has hosted some of the greatest players in golf over the years, with its association with the Queensland Open dating back to the initial staging of the championship in 1925, the first of a record 21 Opens held at the club. Among the storied winners include major champions Jim Ferrier and Kel Nagle, with Eric Cremin, Stuart Appleby and Von Nida lifting the trophy in the shadow of Brisbane’s heritage-listed clubhouse.
The Brisbane Golf Club celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2021, having formed as a club in 1896 at a site in the nearby suburb of Chelmer. The club moved to its current Yeerongpilly location in 1903, with former Australian Open champion Carnegie Clark responsible for the design of the first layout.
Brisbane was also one of approximately 20 golf clubs across Australia and New Zealand who sought the counsel of the great course architect Alister MacKenzie during his visit to Australia in 1926. Many of MacKenzie’s bunkering recommendations were implemented, however land acquisitions and other decisions taken over time have led to a series of changes to the golf course, with only a few of Clark’s original design remaining (the par-5 1st hole, for example).
With a view to ongoing improvement, the club appointed Crafter and Mogford Golf Strategies as its course architects in 2022; a Course Enhancement Plan (CEP), including a series of recommendations, has recently been completed. Most of the key recommendations within the plan focus on presentation, vegetation and addressing some boundary issues on certain holes.
“Paul Mogford has quite a vision in terms of opening up the course to improve the vistas,” Brisbane GC’s chief executive officer, Geoff Kuehner, said. “It is already paying dividends, as you can now see down to the first green from the clubhouse. From the fifth fairway, you can now look back up and see the stunning 17th hole.
“There will be some replanting, but not on a large scale. We really want to open the course up and expose some of the features of what is a stunning piece of land.”
In its current iteration, the course plays up to 6,100 metres from the back tees and winds its way pleasantly through a well-established, treelined setting dotted with bunkers and strategically positioned creeks, ponds and larger lakes. Many of the green settings with towering eucalypts as a backdrop are quite picturesque as a result, none more than the par-4 6th which, from the fairway, is arguably the closest thing to a Sandbelt green setting you’ll find in Queensland.
The property currently features 21 holes, albeit the 10th is being used temporarily as the practice range while a new facility is being built, with the par oscillating between 71 and 72 depending on the composition of holes being used at any given time.
The layout generally places a premium on positioning your tee shot carefully and the penalty for missing in the wrong place, off the tee and into certain greens, can be quite penal. The undulating and often-raised green complexes are the primary feature of the golf course’s defences, with a predominance of short grass surrounds providing many interesting short game challenges.
As recent men’s Queensland Opens have indicated, par is rarely plundered over the course of four rounds at The Brisbane Golf Club. In fact, 2018 champion Jordan Zunic’s 11-under total was the lowest score to par registered in any Open played at Brisbane, with West Australian Brody Martin establishing the course record with a final round eight-under-par 63 that year.
From the beginning of the round, there are many holes which invite you to cast aside any conservative thoughts you might harbour and challenge you to overpower them; to chew off more of a dogleg than you need to. The 2nd, 3rd and 18th are prime examples of this, where an advantage can be gained from a longer tee shot, but with the fairway narrowing, the portents of danger are magnified the further you hit it.
Local knowledge certainly comes into play on several holes, where tee shots need to be played over slight inclines with landing areas not visible from the tee. Compounding these visual challenges are the positioning of bunkers or even watery graves which can lie in wait beyond the crest, as is the case on the tough par-4 5th, the short 8th, the par-5 12th and the somewhat “quirky” 20th hole.
The latter – which climbs and then drops steeply from around 100 metres in – manages to pack steep elevation changes, sand, trees, water, a blind second across a dogleg and a diagonal, undulating green into its 316 metres. Without question, it’s one of the tougher short fours to contend with if you were asked to make par for your life.
Members are currently appreciating the focus on vegetation management – the removal of non-indigenous trees which had clogged the left side of the 1st has been a significant enhancement – as has the installation of new irrigation systems over the past 12-24 months under the Crafter and Mogford oversight.
“We’re hopeful we’ll be able to implement a few projects from the CEP every year and this year, our new practice facility is a substantial investment which has been fully designed by Paul,” Kuehner said.
“We also hope the construction of our new golf shop will be completed by the end of the year, so we’re excited that our members and guests will get to enjoy these enhancements in the near future.”
FACT FILE
LOCATION: Tennyson Memorial Avenue, Yeerongpilly, Queensland.
CONTACT: (07) 3848 1008
WEBSITE: www.brisbanegolfclub.com.au
DESIGNERS: Carnegie Clark (1904), Alister MacKenzie (1926), Wayne Grady, Ross Watson (2007), Crafter and Mogford (ongoing).
PGA PROFESSIONAL: Joe Janison.
PLAYING SURFACES: Queensland blue couch (fairways and tees); Champion Ultradwarf Bermuda (greens).
GREEN FEES: $300 International; $250 Interstate visitors (can play by prior arrangement).
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