70-year-old remembers lifetime on the greens of picturesque course as Little Bay club celebrates 50th

Laetitia Curtis signed up as one of the first members of Little Bay’s picturesque 18-hole course five decades ago. Little did she know how the greens would shape her life.

Laetitia Curtis has been a member of The Coast Golf Club since its first year and now the club is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Laetitia Curtis has walked the greens of Little Bay’s Coast Golf Club since it was little more than a patch of grass used to entertain medical staff.

The 70-year-old remembers putting into the course’s original nine holes alongside doctors and nurses from the now decommissioned Prince Henry Hospital.

She said in the early days the hospital’s laundry was used as a clubhouse.

South Sydney Rabbitohs brothers Sam (back) and Luke (front) Burgess are members of club. Picture: Glenn Duffus.

“If you look inside there is still features from the original laundry,” Mrs Curtis said.

“After that, all of a sudden the club started to grow and grow to what it is now ... some smaller golf clubs haven’t survived.”

During the early 1970s the course was expanded to 18 holes, with greens on both the northern and southern ends of the Little Bay cliffs.

Nora Nagy, former Hungarian women's champion is now a sales and marketing co-ordinator at club.

Since its expansion a range of famous faces have been spotted playing at the picturesque site, including professional golfer turned commentator Brett Ogle, South Sydney Rabbitohs brothers Sam and Luke Burgess and the club’s resident Hungarian women's champion Nora Nagy.

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It was one of the first Sydney clubs that allowed women to play, earning a name for its family-orientation.

Mrs Curtis recounted how she met her husband Ken, a UNSW professor, during a stint as the club’s committee secretary.

In 1969 the pair married in the Little Bay Chapel overlooking the course.

Mrs Curtis was married in a chapel near the course and she scattered his ashes off its cliffs when he passed on.

“There were some lady golfers playing on the day and I remember them raising they clubs up as we came out,” she said.

When her husband passed on Mrs Curtis said she scattered his ashes over the cliffs that ring the greens.

The wind, she recalled, was particularly ferocious on a course famous for its gusty conditions.