Grange (East)

It’s hard to believe that today’s modern 36-hole parkland golf complex at The Grange Golf Club was once nothing other than an enormous sandy swamp that was not even fit for agricultural purposes. Reclamation of the land led to its development as an Adelaide suburb and part of the site was turned over to the sporting pursuit of golf.

Founded in 1926, The Grange Golf Club had a Cargie Rymill-designed course in play the year after its formation. Quite a few changes were made to the layout after The Great War before Vern Morcom was engaged to carry out improvements. It then took nine years before the remodelled course was finished in 1965. It became known as the East course when the new West course debuted in 1967.

The East course at the Grange Golf Club came of age nine years after it opened when a fresh faced, 21-year-old professional named Greg Norman won the 1976 West Lakes Classic; the first of an incredible thirty-one professional tournaments the Great White Shark would win on the Tour of Australia.

Two years later, another Queenslander in the shape of Wayne Grady, would also win his first event on the East. He and Norman would, of course, go on to much greater things by claiming Major titles – Norman with the 1986 and 1993 Open Championship and Grady with the PGA in 1990. Nonetheless, both golfing greats took their first step onto the ladder of golfing success here on the East course.

In 2010, Greg Norman was selected to renovate and update the ageing East course to modern design standards. Greg Norman Golf Course Design and the members of the Grange Golf Club green committee visited many of the Melbourne sand belt courses and the sand based East course re-opened for play in 2011 with more than an echo of the classic courses in Victoria.