Industry news
MOUNT LAWLEY & VICTORIA GC –
TWO OF THE WORLD’S CREEPIEST
COURSES
I
n October, in the spirit of Halloween,
GOLF.com elected the nine scariest courses
around the world, listing Perth’s Mount
Lawley Golf Course as number five.
The golf channel motivated their nomination
with the many alleged ghost encounters on
the course’s infamously difficult 11th hole.
“The 11th hole is known as Clooties Elbow,
a nickname derived from the Gaelic word
for devil. Over the years, countless golfers
playing the mid-length par-pour have
recounted feelings of terror and foreboding.
There’ve been ghost sightings, too, but since
those are hard to verify, we’ll settle on a story
from the early 1930s, when the dead body of
a young man who’d consumed poison was
found prostrate on the green.”
The Lawley golf club officially opened May 31
1930 but saw itself featured in the headlines
months before. At 8:20am on the 10th of
February the club’s greenkeeper James Elliot
Tinlin was doing his morning work when
he stumbled across a body in some scrub
between holes. Next to the body was a
partially empty bottle.
8
The body was later identified as Michael
Kelly, a middle aged out of work sawmiller.
The coroner’s inquest came to the conclusion
of suicide by poisoning. It is stated the body
was found near hole 11.
Just above Mt Lawley in 4th place on the list
is Sleepy Hollow Golf Club, N.Y.
The Course qualified
based on the “The
Legend of Sleepy
Hollow”, a short
story of speculative
fiction by American
author Washington
Irving. In the story,
Irving gives life
to the story of a
headless horseman riding through the misty
night of the New York countryside, across the
very landscape where this Golden Age design
now lies.
How about their club logo? Spooky!
Last on the list another Australian course can
be found, the Victoria Golf Club in Cheltham.
“Late one night in 1936, a nurse named Doris
Gravlin ambled out onto this sandbelt course
to meet with her estranged husband, Victor.
She was never seen again. But her spiritual
form has been spotted plenty. Some who’ve
spied her say that she’s like Casper, a friendly
ghost. But others insist that she’s grown
more menacing over the years.”
Read the full list here.
The Golf Marketing Professionals I www.golfindustrycentral.com.au