The town of Quambatook has had a hard few years — it’s lost its tennis club, numerous residents and, in 2022, its football-netball club.
It looked like the golf club would go the same way when operations were suspended in 2017 due to a lack of members.
But a group of residents proved recently that decline is not always par for the course when they borrowed a mower, did a whip-around for materials and restored the course to a playable state.
Russell Waldron said the impetus came from a conversation with the groundskeeper.
“Some fellas got together to have a chat with the resident keeper of the green and said, ‘You reckon we could mow some more holes and get it back up again for some more local hackers to have a hack?’,” Mr Waldron said.
“And he said, ‘Yeah, no problem. Here’s the keys to the mower — off you go’.
“Me, having the gift of the gab, wanders around to a couple of local farmers with a 44-gallon drum, with my hat in my hands and says, ‘Reckon you could give me a splash of fuel?’.”
‘The Whackery’ is born
A local quarry donated dust to spread across the scape and a handful of volunteers set about mowing and clearing the course.
When they shared their work on Facebook, the post attracted hundreds of likes.
In the future they hope to restore the benches, signs and distance markers as well.
When it was initially operating, the course had nine holes, but Mr Waldron said three of them were still too rough to be used.
Theoretically, he said, it was possible to play the six that were there three times and make it a 72-par course, as it was originally.
The group does not have plans at this stage to formally reopen the club and recruit members, but people are embracing the free space where golfers can have a casual swing.
In that spirit, Mr Waldron has nicknamed it “The Whackery”.
Fighting against decline
Like many regional towns across Australia, Quambatook is suffering from the impacts of a declining and aging population, with a loss of services and the closure of community organisations.
But the closure of the football-netball club was felt particularly acutely, and received widespread media coverage.
There is no primary school in town anymore, after it closed due to staffing issues, despite a public Facebook campaign.
Secretary of the former Quambatook Golf Club Peter Furey, who had been involved since 1998, remembers the club in its glory days.
“If you’re ever going to start playing golf, Quamby would be the perfect spot to start … because it’s so relaxed,” he said.
“I just remember the last year we had it, we mowed it and it was just perfect, it was like a carpet … we just had no-one playing.”
But Mr Furey believes that small actions like this are vital if towns like Quambatook are to survive.
“You’ve just got to work from those small percentages, it may attract a few people, rather than one great big idea that’s just going to change the town back to what it was. That’s just not going to happen” he said.
“These guys mowing it and doing it up might start something, you never know.”
Russell Waldron says that sometimes all that’s needed is for people to take action.
“It’s only that somebody [says], ‘I’ve got an idea’, and another bloke goes, ‘Well, yeah, so have I, let’s look at what we can do”,” he said.