Exploring an Abandoned Golf Course near Melbourne, Australia
The small town of Olinda east of Melbourne used to be home to one of the hilliest golf courses in Australia before it was closed in 2012.
We ventured there to see whether any remnants of the old golf course remain and also to investigate the old clubhouse which is now completely abandoned.
Video shotlist:
00:00 – Introduction
00:33 – The old clubhouse
01:37 – The old golf course
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36 Comments
Such a tragic waste !!!!.
There is a massive Tudor style dining room in the back of the clubhouse…really beautiful.
Played this course several years back with the Mulligans(24 great mates)
Fun days and a bloody great course in its time although the angle of the fairways meant a beautiful drive rolled sideways to the fence .😅😅😅😅
Enjoyed your film.Well done 👍
Go checkout Marysville golf course if you want hills especially the back nine! Thanks for sharing! 🙏👍👌🇦🇺
😔
Such a shame, I wish someone would bring it back.
Played there many times with my uncle I remember my father walking off after 9 holes saying you need to be a mountain goat to play on this golf course. 😂😂
I played pennant golf there many times in my younger years. Extremely hilly.
Reminds me of Royal Wattle Park in parts…
Golf course where I had my only eagle – 2 on a par 4. Couldn’t see that I had holed it because of severe slope I played up 😢
Why did it actually shutdown?
Fantastic video
If you want to see a hilly golf course, try Berhampore Golf Course or Titahi Bay GC. Both in Wellington NZ. Make that joint look flat
FUN GOLF COARSE EXTREMILY TUFF IN SUMMER YOU WOULD HIT BALLS TO THE NONE SLOPE SIDE AND THEY WOULD RUN OFF THE FAIRWAY ON THE OTHER SIDE BORONIA FC USED TO TRAIN THERE AS PUNISHMENT FOR A LOSS😭
I played the course with a couple of mates back in the 1980s during the warmer months. I concur with other comments about the sideway slanting fairways. You'd hit the ball to the far uphill side and if you missed the preferred landing zone the ball would roll all the way across the fairway to the bottom of the hill making the remainder of the hole more of a challenge and very physically taxing. I believe the local members only played the top 6 holes to save playing down the low back end of the course. That long straight downhill hole with the views was their signature hole and amazing to play. It was along way to the green, but if you hit a good straight shot your ball had a chance of rolling all the way to the green after it came down from space 😂 We were all young fun golfers so needless to say we all had our largest scores ever by far, a record that still stands for us all today 40+ years on and vowing never to play the course again 😅
It was a really fun but sometimes overly challenging course with the slopes. Played it many times best time to play was in winter/spring when soft underfoot. Meant the ball could hold the fairways! No good in summer with the ball rolling the wrong way for miles. A great place for a casual game with a few mates and a few drinks after. Great video HP!
I grew up in Olinda and Monbulk and learnt how to play golf on the Olinda and Emerald courses as a child!
Definitely the hardest way to learn golf but I do miss both of those courses for nostalgic reasons!! 🥲
Played it with mates when at uni, was cheap, hard work so good for footy preseason and a decent feed afterwards if you went at the right time. Also had some of the loveliest views…enjoyed it a lot, fun memories, sad to see it shut.
Played there a few times as a teenager. I distinctly remember the 14th hole. Par 3 huge uphill from tee box to green. If you didn't make it, the ball basically ran 100m+ back to the tee box!
Began playing golf there in mid-70’s. Was just a hut to pay. During summer if you hooked your ball in to the rough you left it there fearing the many snakes. So hilly some holes had a marker on top of hill you aimed for and hoped for the best not knowing where your ball landed. Lucky I was fit back then to do a round but couldn’t do it today in my 60’s
Played pennant as a youngster in the VGL. The hole with the YV views was the 3rd. First time I ever hit over 300 metres (from an average 220m 'normal' hit).
I was a member at Olinda GC in the late 80's, early 90's, and that is not the clubhouse. That was the popular Bide a While restaurant. The clubhouse is the building that backs on to the Olinda football oval. It was the hilliest golf club in Australia, and each year, they held the King of the Mountain tournament, whereby you walk 36 holes in 1 day, and you got a trophy just for finishing. I have 2 trophies from this, and we rarely ever lost pennant, as the other teams could not hack the hills, or know how to play the course properly. It was a great course and a great club, and was closed due to lack of support from the local government, VGL and Parks Victoria. Very sad considering what they have turned it into now; the hilliest dog park in the world, and a traffic/noise/parking black-spot. Well done Parks Victoria = NOT!!
I played their once , needed one leg shorter than the other😁 pity that they closed the clubhouse down, would have made a great cafe restaurant and introduce some birdlife and kangaroos💁
First time I tried to play, the fog and low cloud meant you couldn’t see more than 50m, was also only course I played with snow falling. Used to head up with 4 of us in a 120Y and 4 sets of clubs. On the back 9, the terror was the 16th which went straight back up the hill towards the clubhouse….almost killed you everytime you played it late in the round.
I played Olinda on the morning of my best mate's wedding back in 2007 – good memories.
I'm now a runner and often run through the old course. I've got some great pictures of it blanketed with snow back in 2019
Our family holiday house was down at Lorne. We were about 100 yards from the 4th green. Know the course very well. Another hilly course is Beacon Hills, located in Upper Beaconsfield.
Used to play junior pennant there. Invariably teed off in a thick fog and was known to have snow on occasion. If the fairways were baked you couldn’t hold them and they had little fences inside the boundary so your ball wouldn’t run out of bounds!
What did you expect after many years of being closed😂
I bit sad &nostalgic seeing the Old Course so run down…had many a memorable game there. The Olinda Golf club is now still thriving at BeaconHills… come and join us there… You're most welcome!
I bit sad &nostalgic seeing the Old Course so run down…had many a memorable game there. The Olinda Golf club is now still thriving at BeaconHills… come and join us there… You're most welcome!
I'm still a member of the Olinda golf club, grew up playing my junior years there. The building you were looking at was the restaurant and not the club house. Our club house was on the other side of the carpark.
Also the holes you walked around and played in order if my memory is correct was 1st, 5th/7th (course changed around at one stage), 3rd and 2nd if that helps.
I played at Olinda once many years ago with my brother and his mate, I started off a bit shaky but came home pretty well. Those greens were so hard, we swore that on a couple of times the ball rolled up hill lol. There was this par 4 that went straight down a hill, both my brother and his mate rushed their shots thinking they could make the green, one sliced and the other hooked. I just focused and took my time and the ball ended up just off the green. To this day that moment is still one of my happy golf memories.
Enjoyed reading all the comments here, as much as the video itself.
I have an enduring memory of the 9th green. It must have been around 1969 when this boy and his girl decided, in the depths of the midnight darkness and just for the devilment, to irreverently, disrespect and desecrate that hallowed green. We really gave that picnic rug a good workout. 😂 Please, excuse my mirth. The things we did.
Communities die when golf dies
I visited in 2015 and walked the abandoned course. Really fascinating expedience.
I walk our dog there regularly and meet so many fabulous locals, it's a top spot. Parks Vic and the Shire destroyed the top section in the name of footy, despite strong opposition.
So many people mention that they played there, just once they often add! 😂
Was Olinda part of the Ivo Whitten Trophy schedule?