When Gary Parker first teed it up in 1976, drivers were made of laminated wood, timesheets were written in pencil and a round of golf ended not with an app notification but with a shout in the clubhouse bar. Nearly 50 years later, Parker tells DAVID NEWBERY how the game has changed and what has remained wonderfully the same.
LATER this year, Gary Parker will reach a milestone few golfers can claim – 50 years of continuous club membership and competition.
Across a working life spanning 37 years, Parker played his club golf at just two clubs – Pacific Golf Club in Brisbane and now he enjoys retirement in the coastal community of Tin Can Bay in Queensland’s Wide Bay–Burnett region.
These days he cruises around his home course in a golf cart, but recently his thoughts drifted back to a very different era of club golf.
“I was almost 22 when I started,” Parker told Inside Golf. “And I was armed with my first real full set of 12 clubs.”
It was a far cry from the modern equipment lining pro shop shelves today. Parker’s driver and fairway wood were made of laminated wood, complete with a hard insert screwed into the face for extra power.
“A good wood shot in those days was literally ‘out of the screws’,” he says.
His iron set: PGF Slammers from 3-iron through sand wedge were the best he could afford at the time. They had none of the “game improvement” technology golfers now take for granted.
Every shaft was steel. Combine that with the smaller 1.62-inch British-sized golf ball used in Australia at the time and the result could be punishing on the hands.
“If you didn’t strike it properly, especially on a cold day, your hands knew about it,” Parker says. “And the budget golf ball I used was as hard as a rock, which didn’t help.”
Back then, Saturday was the main competition day for members.
Like thousands of club golfers around the country, Parker worked through the week looking forward to the chance to compete on the weekend.
Paper timesheets were the system of the day. They appeared about a week before the event and players simply pencilled their names, or a group of names, into a preferred morning or afternoon slot.
And most competitions were played off a three-quarter handicap, calculated and adjusted by the club handicapper using nationally approved guidelines. The maximum male handicap at the time was 27.
Side bets between players were officially frowned upon, though Parker admits they were hardly uncommon.
Oftentimes, that made life difficult for the handicapper.
“Some unscrupulous players were known to play ‘dead’ in lesser events to manipulate their handicap for the bigger competitions,” Parker said.
Eventually, the match committee stepped in issuing what Parker describes as “timely and savage handicapping on suspicion” to bring the worst offenders back into line.
Course conditions were also far less predictable than today’s manicured playing surfaces.
Many Queensland courses at the time featured couch grass greens that were often bumpy and inconsistent.
“The fairways and rough received far less attention than modern golfers expect,” said Parker.
“We didn’t have the irrigation systems, specialised contractors or the equipment that clubs have today. And greenkeeping knowledge has improved enormously.”
Distance markers were virtually non-existent, placing a premium on experience and judgement.
Players relied heavily on local knowledge – and their eye.
“Most of us learned to pick certain trees or bushes as markers,” Parker said.
He remembers one particular guide on his home course.
“If I drove it past a certain bush on the closing par-five, I could reasonably expect to clear the creek with a fairway wood instead of laying up,” he says with a laugh. “It didn’t always work out.”
Gary Parker now travels in style during a round of golf.
Fashion, too, was very different.
Nearly everyone walked the course, either carrying their bag or using a ‘trundler’.
Dress codes were strict and strictly enforced.
And then there was the unmistakable soundtrack of the era – the “clickety-clack” of metal spikes striking paved surfaces around the clubhouse.
Shorts were accompanied by long, knee-high white only socks.
The ultimate fashion mistake, however, was entering the clubhouse with a cap or hat still on your head.
“It was basically a hanging offence,” Parker said.
Punishment usually involved ‘shouting the bar’, although more often the offender simply endured a loud chorus of mock outrage from members.
Of course, finishing the round was only half the experience.
Traditionally, players made their way straight to the bar afterwards for a ‘shout’ with their group.
Although Parker has been a lifelong teetotaller, he always understood the importance of that ritual to club life.
“I still joined in,” he says.
He occasionally enjoyed the reactions he received when ordering drinks.
“I’d ask for three beers and a strawberry milk,” Parker says with a smile. “The barman would look at me with complete disdain.”
His playing partners were often just as surprised when he returned carrying the tray.
In earlier decades, his refusal to drink alcohol sometimes raised eyebrows, but attitudes gradually shifted, particularly with the introduction of random breath testing.
The afternoon rarely ended quickly.
Many players lingered in the clubhouse while the last groups finished and scorecards were checked and tabulated by the match committee.
Once the results were finalised, the club captain would conduct a formal presentation.
If the day’s winner had played in the morning field, they might even receive a phone call asking them to return to the clubhouse for the announcement.
And there was one final expectation.
“The winner was expected to give a speech,” Parker said. “For some people, that was probably more nerve-wracking than playing the round.”
Over the decades Parker has seen almost every aspect of club golf evolve – from equipment, course conditioning to handicapping systems and competition management.
But the heart of the game, he says, remains exactly the same.
“The nuts and bolts have changed a lot,” says Parker. “But the main things haven’t – the camaraderie between golfers, the fellowship of like-minded people, the constant challenge to improve.
“And let’s not forget the familiar frustrations that accompany the pursuit of a better score.
It’s the same addiction,” Parker adds. “The same intolerable game that keeps bringing us back.”
FOOTNOTE: Many readers will recognise Gary Parker as the man who caddied for Peter Senior for a decade.
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