Elanora - New South Wales - Australia

The name Elanora comes from the Aboriginal word meaning “home by the water” and the Country Club certainly satisfies this geographical description as it is located on a hill overlooking Narrabeen Lagoon and the Tasman Sea.

Situated close to the Ku-ring-gai Chase and Garigal National Parks, Elanora is laid out within the residential suburb of Elanora Heights on land originally purchased by members of Royal Sydney Golf Club back in the early 1920s.

Dan Soutar carved nine fairways through classic bushland terrain from where there are majestic views of nearby Northern Beaches. For golfers who are keen to spot specimens of native wildlife, there are plenty of bandicoots, lizards, possums and wallabies to be seen.

An article on Dan Soutar by John Scarth and Neil Crafter in Golf Architecture mentions he designed the first nine holes: “Soutar’s fee for designing and supervising the construction of these nine holes at Elanora was £250, a significant increase over his £25 Kingston Heath fee of some 5 years earlier. The Elanora history records that Soutar ‘test-drove’ some of his holes before they were built – a member came upon Dan driving balls from on top of a large rock outcrop at the 9th hole, hitting off a mat down into the scrub-filled valley below. Soutar had some local lads attaching red flags to saplings where his balls landed and this rock eventually became the medal tee of today’s 9th hole.”

James Herd Scott, who travelled to Australia with Soutar when they emigrated from Scotland, added another nine to the original layout and he became the club’s first professional, a position he held for three decades.

At the start of the new millennium, James Wilcher redesigned the entire course with substantial realignment of some holes and significant changes to others.