A vandal attack on the tiny country golf course at Dunedoo in New South Wales’ Central West has left the club’s members and the town utterly devastated.
Members arrived at the course, an hour east of Dubbo, on Wednesday morning to a scene reminiscent of a battleground, with about half of the club’s nine fairways and sand greens completely ploughed up.
Dunedoo Golf Club’s general manager, Ricky Bush, said the damage had left the members and the village’s community reeling.
“People were just staring at the mess and starting to cry. They couldn’t believe it.”
Bush said the blow was particularly savage, especially after what the community had endured during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The club is a community asset, a vital part of the town,” he said. “We were the only sport in town which had kept going through the pandemic.
“We were only talking at our Annual General Meeting the other night about what we had achieved last year even with the pandemic, and now we have copped this.”
Estimates of the damage put the course out of action for at least four months, with the financial cost still to be determined. The community, however, is very tight-knit, and Bush said the club had already received several offers of help from locals.
“We have had offers of machinery to help fix it, even from folk in the town who don’t play golf, but it’s going to take a lot of work to repair,” he said.
“I think this is an indication of how important our club is to the local community.”
“Our members usually play their weekly comp on Sunday, but for the next few months it looks like it will be working bees, not golf.”
Dunedoo Golf established a GoFundMe page to assist with the clubs rebuilding effort. If you would like to donate, click here: https://gofund.me/e7794255
