Mackay Golf Club in coastal Queensland marks its centenary this month. As a tour pro who visits there annually, it’s a club and course that have come a long way – and have a big future ahead.
Although turning 100 might not garner a letter from the king for Mackay Golf Club, there is still a buzz around the membership with 2025 marking its centenary.
The club started as a nine-hole course where the city’s airport is now located before moving to its current location only a few years after inception. Committed volunteers helped build the golf course through hard physical labour before a nine-hole addition in 1947 completed the layout.
Time spent at Mackay Golf Club begins with wonderful anticipation. As soon as you pull into the property, you’re treated to a Magnolia Lane-type drive along which the course is revealed on your way to the clubhouse. The 11th tee appears first, followed by the 17th green, then the 16th and finally the ninth hole to the left. The entire 10th hole is to your right as well as through-lines to different corners of the course.
First-time visitors can have stimulation hypothesis – the deciphering of how the tees, playing corridors and green complexes fit into the landscape gets the golf juices flowing. Members and returning visitors may be looking across the course for familiar faces, locking into the round ahead or switching off from day-to-day stresses. The longer than usual drive to the middle of the property provides an air of excitement before you’ve even teed off. It’s an excitement also carried by Mackay’s general manager David Roche. In a year when it’s easy to look back and reminisce, he has a keen eye on what’s coming next.
“The club as a whole isn’t looking ahead weeks and months so much as years and decades,” he says. “We’re proud of where we’ve come from and how the club is going at the moment, but we’re always looking at small improvements, 1-percenters, that can continue to elevate the club.”
Along with taking over operation of the Mackay driving range and potential plans to build a nine-hole short course on vacant club land, there is a desire to capitalise on the COVID golf boom. “Since the pandemic, we’ve restructured to a five, six and seven-day membership to ensure appropriate course access,” Roche says, “so having the driving range has allowed us to diversify our golf offering.”
Roche also acknowledged the positive impact the pro shop has had on welcoming and retaining the increased golfers coming through the doors. “Jeff Reid, our head pro, and his team have been a massive part of the club surge in the past few years,” Roche says. Reid has been in the top job in the pro shop for 24 years. Quite remarkably, since Horrie Sloan was appointed by the club in 1930, Reid is just the fifth head professional.
ALL THE SHOTS
Though Mackay isn’t a long golf course by modern standards (5,777 metres, par 71), it provides a stern test of golf throughout. The dense treelines skirting each fairway require sophisticated recovery-shot making just to give yourself a chance around the greens. The layout does not give many bailout spots for short and long hitters alike to hit it across onto other fairways. The bunkering around the greens (every complex has at least one) demands you come in from the correct angles to give yourself a chance of getting the ball close. Many of the targets are at least slightly elevated to account for the low-lying land the course sits on, while also creating plenty of interest on the putting surface. When you miss in the wrong spots, you need to draw on all your short-game skill and creativity to give yourself a reasonable chance for an up-and-down. On top of this, the course utilises the property’s hazards and out-of-bounds – which are in play on 11 holes – to great effect. I’d be surprised if you walked off the course without hitting every club in the bag.
There’s a good mix of long and short shots. Some are gun-barrel straight while others dogleg (left and right) with differing severity. Long par 4s like the third and 12th holes, which demand a well-struck drive to provide any chance of hitting the green in two, juxtapose with short par 4s like the fourth, 13th and 16th where any score from 2 to 8 could go onto the scorecard.
Mackay also has a strong set of ‘one-shot’ holes and, as so often happens, the shortest of them has the most character. A mere 114 metres from the back tee, the sixth hole plays through a chute of trees to a reverse-pear-shaped green. Well-guarded by a bunker on the front right and two bunkers on the left side of the green, the front portion of the target is extremely narrow, making any up-and-down tricky. Although it widens in the back, the internal contouring makes putting difficult along with run-offs at the back and right of the green.
Mackay constantly offers the fine line between glory and disaster, personified perfectly by the three finishing holes. The 16th is a high-quality, risk/reward short par 4. Whether you’re trying to drive the green or have laid up short of the fairway bunkers, you’ll have to negotiate water long and right of the green on approach. If you bail out left, it will leave either a bunker shot or a chip over said bunkers to a green sloping away from you back towards the aforementioned water.
The 17th is another nasty short par 3 that becomes exponentially more difficult the further up the green you want to advance the ball. A short-left bailout leaves a straightforward chip up the green. A direct line to the pin brings the front-right bunker into play. A miss left or right of the middle of the green introduces deep greenside bunkers to a narrow front section, while going long sees a sharp drop off an elevated back tier. The last time I was there my playing partner made an ace – a very effective strategy!
The 18th is the longest hole on the course, stretching 507 metres off the tips up a gentle incline to the clubhouse. There’s ample room off the tee with unforgiving treelines on both sides. On approach, there is a back-to-front tilted green with eight bunkers in the surrounding area.
The fun doesn’t stop with the last putt, either. After a visit to the bar, there are a number of groups who have come up with their own live betting. With the view from upstairs and a print-out of the 18th green and surrounds, individuals place $2 coins on the picture where they think the next person approaching the final hole will hit their ball. Closest guess collects the cash.
There will be a ‘week of golf’ in June with a different competition each day to mark the 100th anniversary of the formation of Mackay Golf Club. There are also plans in September to commemorate the first organised competition played at the club. Throughout will be gatherings of past presidents and captains along with dignitaries from across the region.
THE DETAILS
Mackay Golf Club
Where: Mackay Bucasia Rd, Beaconsfield QLD 4740
Phone: (07) 4942 1521
Web: mackaygolf.com.au
Mark Panopoulos is a PGA professional with tournament membership on the PGA Tour of Australasia, and a member of Australian Golf Digest’s Top 100 Golf Courses panel. Playing the pro-am circuit the past two years, he’ll be returning for the PIMS Group Mackay Pro-Am this month.
