The course & your visit
Oakbank: a century on the racecourse, now in the valley
Oakbank Golf Club, founded in 1892, is South Australia’s second-oldest club and a founding member of the state association. For just over a century it played on the Oakbank Racecourse, home of the Great Eastern Steeplechase; since 1995 it has played a nine-hole course with eighteen alternate tees on Smith Street in the Onkaparinga Valley — which the club puts a comfortable 30-minute drive from Adelaide. The whole operation is run by volunteer members.
Sources: Oakbank — history · Oakbank — home
Railings for hazards
The racecourse century shaped a famously idiosyncratic round: the grandstand served as the clubrooms, there were no bunkers, and the ever-present race-track railings demanded extreme caution — ball meeting railing produced what the history calls extreme and unpredictable deviation. The sand track and racecourse structures stood in for every hazard golf could offer.
In 1994 the club laid out its current nine on former farmland owned by the Johnston family since 1858, under longstanding company secretary and Life Member Bryan O’Leary — after a one-year interlude playing at Mount Pleasant, the new course opened on 15 January 1995. Hundreds of planted trees and shrubs have since grown from bare fairways into fauna habitat that now punishes the wayward; the club purchased the course from its previous owners in June 2015.
Sources: Oakbank — history
The valley nine
The Smith Street course is an easily traversed nine with eighteen alternate tee blocks and just two sand bunkers, its couch fairways fully irrigated. The site maintains twilight golf, competition results, a hole-ace register and club-best records — and the club championship, contested as this guide’s sources were captured, had a junior leading A grade into the final round.
Sources: Oakbank — the course · Oakbank — home
Visiting and the honesty box
Green-fee visitors and groups are welcome outside member competitions: Saturdays until 3:30pm, Tuesdays and Wednesdays until 1:30pm — though green-fee players may still use the course midweek provided they give way. GolfLink handicappers can join club competitions. Payment is endearingly flexible: a tap terminal on the clubhouse veranda, in person when volunteers are about, or exact cash in an envelope through the wall slot when the clubhouse is closed.
Country practicalities apply: no tee-off before 7am on frost mornings, afternoon play cancelled when Mount Barker forecasts 38 degrees or more, and full closure on catastrophic fire days. Carts are hired by prior arrangement, and group bookings run through secretary Barry Conole on 0448 623 440. The course line is (08) 8388 4510.
Sources: Oakbank — visitor information
Researched from the published sources linked above.