New Year’s Day officially marked Portsea Golf Club’s 100th birthday which was celebrated by raising our new centenary flag which sits above the putting green. Around 200 members and guests packed the deck to celebrate the milestone and the people who have helped shape the Portsea Golf Club. 99 year old member, Bill Horn, shares the same birth year with the club and was there to helpraise the flag and send the club into its next century. It was a fantastic afternoon and the first of many events to help celebrate the clubs centenary year.
Michael Pardy read out a poem as the flag was raised, which he penned to mark the club’s centenary, which can be read here or below. Michael has a book of poems he has written available at Antipodes book shop in Sorrento.
The Portsea Game
“… it has an indefinable je ne sais quoi separating it from the norm” – Mike Clayton
A long time ago, Relph was chased by a bull,
He hurdled a fence where the eighth green stands,
Puffing and panting, Relph looked up to see
The darnedest place for a golf course to be.
Investors, workers, volunteers, friends
Crawled through the brambles to mark out the pins,
Slash the scrub and stack up loose stones,
Plough the earth and spread plugs in the loam.
In 1926 the course opened with nine,
Forty more years to get to eighteen,
A brand new clubhouse and resort combined
With a luxurious deck to cap off the scene.
Then they installed an orchestra of water,
Pop-up sprinklers whirling like wizards
Performing a dance for every supporter
A rousing applause for a vision delivered.
I wish we could bring back Relph for a day
To stand on the first with his favourite wood
Surveying the scene we might hear him say:
Whoever thought… we could make it this good.
How did they do it? What kept them going?
A hundred years–through lean times and droughts,
The soldier camp, barbed wire, flies and doubts.
It’s because of the game that Portsea uncovers
With its famous Portsea je ne sais quoi
Where a hillside bounce can gift you a par,
Where each hole hides a surprise defence,
It’s the place where the game almost makes sense.
© Michael Pardy 2026