WOMEN'S Golf NSW celebrated its centenary earlier this year, and the history of the sport at Nowra dates back almost 100 years.
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The earliest known female golfer locally was Barbara Grant, daughter of the long serving Presbyterian minister who died in 1948 shortly after her 100th birthday.
She teamed with local monumental mason James Dudgeon to win the mixed foursome event at the first Nowra golf competition on Wednesday, April 12, 1905.
That event was contested by half a dozen pairs on the Recreation Ground which then boasted a nine-hole course.
Initiative to form a Nowra Golf Club was taken by two Nowra bank managers, Patrick C.C. Mackay (Commercial Banking Co. of Sydney) and R.W. Fincham (City Bank of Sydney).
They called a meeting held at Nowra School of Arts on May 25, 1904 which saw Fincham become secretary/treasurer with Dr William Olivey president.
The committee included several prominent citizens, police magistrate William Dove, solicitor Thomas Marriott, and Presbyterian clergyman Rev. Robert Inglis, along with teenager Athol Leatheam, a grandson of Nowra's first white resident John Smith who was destined to serve as Nowra Mayor in 1924.
The meeting set the annual subscription at 2/6 (25c), and it was initially planned to play on land owned by James Graham - perhaps in the vicinity of Graham Lodge.
When the inaugural competition was played at the Recreation Ground, it was reported that "when good putting greens had been laid down and some minor improvements effected, they will prove a decided acquisition to the town".
A working bee did some useful work on the course prior to the handicap stroke event conducted on May 31.
That event was won by Albion Hotel publican Walter Cambourn, a new player on a handicap of 30 who had 70 off the stick.
Nowra Golf Club archives hold a map of the original course on the Recreation Ground that started at the western end of Junction Street in what became the Added Area in 1931.
The first two holes went along the western boundary of the ground, and any right-handers inclined to hook could have seen their balls land in the Shoalhaven River.
The 390-yard third hole started on the site now occupied by Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital.
Players had to hit over Shoalhaven Street, and there were three greens in that area now covered by houses.
They included the short 120-yard fifth, which was one of two holes with a par three.
The longest hole, the 480-yard sixth travelled adjacent to Shoalhaven Street.
The nine holes totalled 2,660 yards, and each of the greens was protected by a fence at least 25 yards square.
After the Recreation Ground, Nowra golfers also played on the Princelands course at South Nowra (1930) and near the aerodrome (1934) before the move to the present location in 1954.