The seventh hole at Cranbourne Golf Club.
AS a teenager, Jeff Gordon, started playing golf at Elsternwick’s public nine-hole course until he joined Cranbourne at 16-years of age.
He remembers fondly cadging a lift to the course most weekends in the Rolls Royce of president, Cyril Davis.
“I had lessons and became quite a good player,” Jeff says.
He got his handicap down to seven, played in the club’s successful junior pennant team and represented Australia in the 1985 Maccabiah Games in Israel. He has been heavily involved in the club for the best part of his 50 plus years including sitting on the board.
But he admits: “I’ve fallen out of love a bit with the game over the past 10 years. I got a bit sick of the drive to get there and only managing to score 21 points (off a handicap now 23) in the club competition.”
Jeff Gordon, for 50 years a member and one of only a handful to be awarded life membership at the Cranbourne Golf Club.
As the curtain came down on the Cranbourne club after 72 years at the end of February – the land has been sold to former Carlton AFL player turned developer Fraser Brown – life member Jeff, now 68, reflected on the pride he has in the club. He is one of a handful at Cranbourne awarded life membership.
The club was founded in response to the ban on Jews being members of some of the elite golf clubs in Melbourne in the 1950’s.
Jeff is now one of 250 Cranbourne members who will become members of Huntingdale.
“As one of a handful a life members at Cranbourne, I will not pay one dollar at Huntingdale. We will be known, not as life members of Huntingdale, but legacy members.”
Other Cranbourne members who joined Huntingdale will pay Cranbourne subscriptions for three years.
Cranbourne offered Huntingdale a $10 million sweetener to do the deal – a windfall for the elite sandbelt club as it undertook massive redevelopment under the guidance of architects Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead.
An even bigger bonus for former Cranbourne members is that Huntingdale and its neighbour, Metropolitan, are on the verge of signing a deal to merge. This will create an international 36-hole golf destination complex in the heart of Melbourne’s famous sandbelt. In time, the merged entity could perhaps command annual subs as high as $30,00 and a joining fee of almost $100,000.
As it closed its doors for the final time, Cranbourne paid tribute to those who had contributed over the 72-year journey, not the least of them founders and businessmen Syd Kaufman and Harry Lasky, who bought the land in 1951 and beloved historian and past president Les Kausman, now in his 90’s, but still playing twice a week.
One of the best historical decisions the club made was to appoint renowned architect Sam Berriman to design the course.
The 1991 British Open Winner Ian Baker Finch with Jeff Gordon at Cranbourne when it hosted the Vic Open in the 1980s.
Berriman also created Huntingdale, Keysborough, Southern, Latrobe, Shepparton, Yarrawonga (Lake course), Sale, Horsham (one of Australia’s best country golf courses), Northcote and Lakes Entrance.
As well, the legendary Ossie Pickworth became the club’s first. professional. Pickworth was a genuine great of Australian Golf, winning four Australian opens including three in a row from 1946-1948, one coming in a play-off with countryman Jim Ferrier.
The late Peter Thomson, a five-time Open Champion, always rated Cranbourne highly. Before it closed, it was ranked a very respectable 62 in the country.
Another historical master stroke came in response to the club’s problems with their fairways and a shortage of water. Turf expert John Sloan, changed all the fairways to couch, making them a delight to play.
One final irony concerning Cranbourne: founded so Jews had somewhere to play, final membership boasted 22 different nationalities. It also had Muslim members. The only criteria for joining Cranbourne was that you were of good character irrespective of religion, race or creed.
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