Royal Queensland mulls Top Golf precinct as part of course redevelopment
The Royal Queensland Golf Club has catered to the elite of the sport for more than a century, but now a more modern taken on the game is being considered to attract more paying customers.
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TOP IDEA
The 100-year-old Royal Queensland Golf Club is considering a 21st century makeover that could include a theme-park style Top Golf precinct and mini-golf.
The proposals are among options being considered by the state’s most exclusive golf club as part of a redevelopment of its old eastern course. Other options include development of a new 9-hole course.
The club has held preliminary discussions with the operators of Top Golf, which operates on the Gold Coast theme park strip, about the proposal.
Top Golf is a modern take on the traditional driving range, where players are served cocktails and snacks from air-conditioned bays as they hit microchipped balls at targets positioned on the course.
The Village Roadshow attraction wedged between the company’s Movie World and Wet’n’Wild theme parks attracts a younger demographic to a sport more traditionally associated with middle-aged business people.
The Top Golf precinct would be a break with tradition for Royal Queensland where a strict dress code of tailored trousers, collared shirts and golf skirts applies, there is a ban on jeans and baseball caps and where etiquette requires players to be on time and remain silent while others are teeing off.
Like many mature golf markets, Australia is suffering a decline in fee-paying club members as the sport battles to attract a younger, time-poor generation who have more leisure options than ever.
The 30-hectare eastern course has been left fallow for more than 10 years after construction of the second Gateway Bridge required the club to design a new course.
Club general manager Paul Hinton says feedback is being sought from members about options for the land. “The three options … summarise a number of in-depth, independent reports provided by industry consultants,” Hinton told members in the club’s monthly newsletter the Royal Mail. “Members are encouraged to provide both verbal and written feedback and to discuss these options within the membership.”
Hinton says members would have “adequate information to decide on an appropriate and sustainable use of the land for the next generation of Royal Queensland members, their children and grandchildren.”
Club spies tell City Beat that the site is a prime piece of land given the commercial and residential development going on in the adjacent North Shore Hamilton precinct .
“I guess it is a bit like Southbank after Expo,” says the spy. “Whatever they do they want to make sure they get it right. Do they just extend the course by another nine holes or do they put in a driving range and exclusive riverside country club?”
Royal Queensland Golf Club was established in 1920 and was granted its Royal Charter in 1921 by King George V, with the King’s official letter of notification signed by Winston Churchill.
That’s the same Winston Churchill who defined golf as “a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an ever smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.”
FASHION STATEMENT
DAGGY attire has been the order of the day over the past couple of months as so many of us work from home. But the bean counters at accounting giant KPMG will be going the extra mile this Friday as they don the daggiest, most garish jumpers to raise money for youth homelessness.
Whether working remotely or in Eagle Street, chairman Michael Hiller is encouraging every staff member to get involved as part of their ongoing efforts to support Brisbane Youth Service, one of its corporate citizenship partners which it supports with pro bono strategic planning work, fundraising, and volunteering.
Brisbane Youth Service runs its Daggy Jumper Day campaign each year to shine a spotlight on issues faced by homeless and vulnerable young people in Brisbane, and to raise vital funds to assist young people secure safe accommodation.
Hiller says the winner of last year’s event was a chap who wore his mum’s old green jumper from the 1980s.
RIGHT TO BE A KAREN
THE rise of the Bunnings’ ‘Karen’ asserting her right not to wear a mask has got leading Queensland compensation lawyer Travis Schultz thinking about Australia’s lack of a Bill of Rights.
Sunshine Coast-based Schultz says the COVID-19 crisis has shone a spotlight on the civil rights breach that leaves Australia without a law protecting our daily rights and liberties.
Schultz says we are now witnessing new examples of behaviour that is generated by people unsure of what their rights are. He says now is the time to fill the gap and end the confusion by introducing a Bill of Rights.