Century of club history to be celebrated

Moving here there and everywhere, the Taieri Lakes Golf Club will look back on 100 years of history this weekend.

The club is holding centenary celebrations this weekend, and a big crowd is expected.

Club president Shane Smith said plenty of former and current players would be there and a good weekend was expected.

There would be a Stableford event on Saturday and an Ambrose contest on Sunday, and fields were full for both days.

A dinner for about 130 was planned at the club on Saturday night, and a nine-hole competition on Monday.

The club had its 100th year last year but Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the celebrations.

Smith said the planning had not been too far advanced before they decided to postpone the event.

The club has been on its present site in Milners Rd, North Taieri, for 51 years, but before then the Taieri Golf Club — as it was known before 2011 — was continually on the move, leasing five different properties.

After starting in East Taieri in 1920, the club briefly moved to the inside enclosure of the Dunedin Jockey Club, at Wingatui, in 1922, but only stayed about a year as balls kept hitting horses, leading to complaints.

The club then shifted a couple more times, but each time it had to move on as the land where the course sat was sold.

It moved to Gladfield Rd in 1936 and spent 33 years at the site, where Gladfield Golf Club is now.

By the late 1960s, membership was 232 men, 98 women and 23 boys. All the golfers were difficult to fit on a nine-hole course and a new course was needed.

So the club decided to move on and built an 18-hole course in Milners Rd in North Taieri, where lakes have become a feature.

Initially, there were no bunkers, no rough and few trees on the Milners Rd course.

But a working bee led to 200 pines being planted and in 1973 bunkers were introduced and the rough was allowed to grow.

Two new holes were introduced earlier this year, with plenty of water features throughout the course.

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