Of course it is.
Ahh, but what a story it could tell.
I brought this wooden bench home from where it has spent its last 40 years, in a back room at the Tallygaroopna Golf Club. Now, Tallygaroopna is but a shell of its former self in the heydays of the 70s and 80s, when it was not uncommon for 70 golfers to attend a tournament. And the suppers were historic - great country cooking and baking at its generous best.
Tallygaroopna has had more than its share of success for a small club. Since 2006 it has held its own with the best clubs in the Goulburn Valley and pretty much has been either winner or runner-up every year in Summer Pennant competition. Not bad for a little 9-hole sand scrape course with just 20 members.
Tallygaroopna Golf course is not that easy. It has many large examples of local trees lining the fairways. It is narrow and has a drainage channel running diagonally through it. There are three par threes on it and none have seen a hole in one in the clubs over 50 years history. One of them is pretty long though. Long before world golf got around to it, we had a 236 metre par 3.
Tallygaroopna Golf Club's future is uncertain these days. Good golfers would rather play elsewhere. It was constructed by and for the local farming community. And afterwards, for local retired footballers looking to stay active. Changed farming fortunes have changed the local farming landscape and population. Where there would be 10 farming families on a country road, now there is one. Membership drives are irrelevant.
Back in the day, farmers would get a relief milker in on a Sunday and head to golf for a bit of R&R. No one would head home after golf unless it was an emergency, staying on to play cards until late. To go home meant to return to work. Drink driving was not such an issue back then.
Tallygaroopna raised its funds by membership fees but mainly through a raffle run on a Friday night at the Tally Pub, sharing the income with the local netball girls. When the pub burnt down, the income became difficult.
The wooden bench would have known the Tally pub. An old country pub where locals would meet and catch up over a cold one, have a meal, hold a meeting. It was a centre of the community. The old grape vine in the court yard beer garden was 120 years old and provided shade to many a patron. The old stables had been converted into accommodation. After the last flood, water got into the old electrical wiring and the fire was the result. The pub couldn’t be rebuilt because of modern building and planning requirements and not enough space for a car park. Ironic.
The wooden bench resided for its first years at the Tallygaroopna Centennial Hall just down the road from the pub. Many a bum would have sat on it at country dances, functions and weddings. Later it served in the RSL downstairs in the basement, where it probably got its water stains during some flood. You had to duck your head to enter there. As the bench got old and past pristine condition, it found its way to the Golf Club where it was appreciated in a practical way. The varnish was worn off, it gathered paint spots when used as a trestle for painting bees, it had saw cuts from being used as a saw bench, sprig marks where golfers would do up their shoe laces, and it provided a home for the redbacks over summer when the club was shut.
You see, Tallygaroopna is pretty basic as golf clubs go. No irrigation means that it is unplayable during summer. No power means that someone has to bring a generator to watch the footy on the telly. And no telephone –why would you? However, insurances and golf affiliation costs have ground us down.
As the Tallygaroopna membership is so small, and as the team size for summer pennants is 10, the stipulation for any new membership at Tally is that you play for the summer pennants team. Anyway, thats the way we get a game during summer.
I am sanding the wooden bench down to give it a drink of wood restorer and maybe a coat of floor varnish. It can stay with me as we are both old and gnarled and now retired. It can participate in the odd barbecue and social gathering and we can have a drink to old times past. When I go, the old wooden bench will return to being an old wooden bench.
Ahh, but the story it could tell.
_ Neville Larson
20°C