Marrickville Golf Club Information

Marrickville Golf Club (MGC) is situated on part of Riverside Park on a property called Riverside which was acquired by Marrickville Council in 1910, an area of 27 acres which encompassed Bruce and Beauchamp Streets and bounded by the Cooks River which was low lying & swampy and needed some drainage and filling. Marrickville Council had the foresight to adopt a policy to acquire all lands on the banks of Cooks River within its own LGA. It was not all good land as the Council used some of these lands as rubbish dumps. In 1938 Marrickville Council established a 9 hole golf course on the high ground of Riverside Park in conjunction with Richards Park. Work began in 1939 and was finished in 1940. The hilly area was chosen as it was unsuitable for cricket wickets. The Western Suburbs Churches Cricket Club strongly defended the right to use the flat part of Riverside Park now basically Mahoney Park and won that battle. The establishment of MGC was a Depression relief program under the Spooner relief scheme at a cost of $2,500. Spooner was the Minister for Public Works. The work was carried out under the supervision of the Councils Engineer, Mr Cottam and a local golfer, Mr Apperly advised on the layout of the course. It provided work for local men with married men given preference. It was necessary to secure an adequate water supply for the golf course. Marrickville Council acquired the Dibble Street waterhole for the purpose. NSW was in drought and the metropolitan water supply had frequent restrictions applied to it. The 1940s drought lasted for several years. Drought recurred again in the late 1950s. Charlie Meader was a MGC greenkeeper for 20 years. He spoke in awe of the Drought of 1958 when the waterhole almost ran dry. Marrickville Council had to buy water and truck it in to keep the greens alive. For other parts of the Course, workers used buckets to transport water from Cooks River and strained it before use. Luckily since then water shortages on the Course have not been as serious. The Marrickville ...