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Royal Fremantle Golf Club
A BRIEF HISTORY
Royal Fremantle Golf Club came into existence in 1905, after a meeting of some 20 or so local golfing enthusiasts at His Lordship’s Larder (later known as His Majesty’s Hotel).
The land chosen for the course was leased out for cattle grazing and also used by the Polo Club. It was well located for use as a golf club, being close to the electric tram line which was being built at the time;
The choice of location proved to be a far-sighted one – Royal Fremantle is one of the few golf clubs to have celebrated its centenary while proudly being able to say that it still sits on its original site.
The Club’s founding fathers were not the sort of people to hang about. The first nine holes were laid out one Sunday aftenoon in 1905 by Arthur Oliphant – who was to become the fledgling Club's Captain – and Peter Corsar Anderson.
Anderson was at the time Headmaster of Scotch College in Claremont. His golfing claims to fame were impressive: he was a former British Amateur Champion (1893) and for several months was the proud course record-holder at the Old Course at St Andrew’s, “the home of golf".
In its early days, Royal Fremantle was a far cry from being the calibre of club that might attract leading players, of even golfing greats. Instead, the goats Royal Fremantle attracted initially, were of the less desirable four-legged variety. They wandered on to the course eating young tree plantings as fast as they were planted and generally ran amok, much to the consternation of the Club and its patrons!
The major long term problem was always adequate water supply. Other early worries to overcome included cattle, rabbits and vandalism.
It is hard to imagine today, with the availability of modern machinery, what an enormous laborious task it must have been back then to turn the rock-strewn area into a golf course. The effort of providing landing stages between tees and greens, with everything surrounded by piles of limestone was a feature of establishing what eventually became grass-covered fairways.
The Club was officially opened by the Governor of Western Australia in 1907. In 1909. Royal Fremantle became the first 18-hole golf club in Western Australia and two years later hosted the inaugural State Amateur Championship, the same year that saw the building of a new clubhouse.
It was King George V who graciously granted the use of the prefix “Royal" and thus, on 14 June 1930, Royal Fremantle came into being, confirming the Club’s status as one of the premier clubs in Western Australia. Even today, there are fewer than 70 Royal golf clubs worldwide, and Royal Fremantle is proud to be one of just eight in Australia,
Numerous improvements have taken place over the years, both on the course and off it, and underlines the Club’s ongoing commitment to continually strive to provide the best for its members.
Royal Fremantle has endured in difficult times - through two World Wars and other crises – and prospered in good ones to become one of Western Australia’s most highly-regarded golf clubs.
Now in sight of its quasquicentennial (125th anniversary), Royal Fremantle Golf Club continues to thrive, with a sense of pride over its past and a clear vision for the years ahead.
References and Links
Source: club brochure
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 29 April, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/clubs/rfgc.html (it was last updated on 29 April, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.