Golfers rush to Leongatha

Bucking the trend of declining memberships across golf clubs, the Leongatha Golf Club is not only luring more golfers, but also attracting more women and junior players.
The club now has 570 members, including 142 women and 36 juniors. Twelve months ago, the club had only five juniors.
It allows men and women to play alongside each other and offers more events. A pro-am is being developed for next year.
The club could also merge its men’s and women’s committees, and consider renaming the club to include reference to Inverloch.
The moves are being considered by the club as part of its strategic plan, presented to South Gippsland Shire Council by club vice president Dan Poynton and club manager Josh Hall last Wednesday.
Golf Australia is now focusing on the sustainability of clubs where there are five clubs within 35km of each other and Leongatha fits that criteria.
“We are very interested to work together with all the golf clubs to ensure golf is the recreational activity of choice in the demographic we are targeting,” Mr Poynton said.
Mr Poynton said the club was aiming to reduce its environmental footprint by addressing its high electricity and water use.
The club is seeking to install solar energy and a
modern irrigation system, in partnership with council.
“The current irrigation system is all manual and is 1960s technology installed in the 1980s,” Mr Poynton said.
“In summer, staff has to manually water greens and that stops them from doing other tasks.”
The irrigation project alone could cost around $200,000.
Councillors praised the club’s professional presentation and suggested council could work with the club to make the projects a reality.
Leongatha Golf Club is ranked the 83rd best public access golf course in Australia according to Golf Australia and is in the only Gippsland club to be in the top 100.

Forward thinking: from left, Leongatha Golf Club vice president Dan Poynton and club manager Josh Hall with the club’s strategic plan after addressing South Gippsland Shire Council last Wednesday.

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Posted by Sarah Vella on Apr 28 2015. Filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry