1894 – 1904 North Bondi
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The founding fathers’ wish to have a traditional sand-based ‘seaside’ or ‘links’ golf course led to the Sydney Golf Club establishing nine holes at North Bondi in June 1894.
The land was akin to a common, with cows grazing, small greens of couch grass surrounded by two-strand wire fences, and all-natural hazards, such as scrub acting as rough, undulating land, trees and water.
At first, refreshments were taken in the open air, when members boiled their billy in the shade of a tree; later, rooms were hired at Mrs Ebsworth’s cottage in Sewer Road (now Blair Street) as a makeshift clubhouse.
RSGC’s first professional, Scots-born James Scott, arrived from Britain in 1896, and it is likely he implemented the final touches to the second, recently designed nine holes, to complete the first 18-hole course.
The first purpose-built Clubhouse was erected in 1897, and at its official opening in August that year the Governor, Lord Hampden, announced the accolade of the Royal prefix.
After minor adjustment to the course related to the location of the new Clubhouse, the first championship meeting was held on this course in 1899, under the auspices of the newly formed Australian Golfing Union. Royal Sydney was one of three founding members of the Union, along with Royal Melbourne and the Adelaide Golf Club.