BERHAMPORE GOLF COURSE (PART ONE)

 I joined Mornington Golf Club this year for several reasons:

1. It was closest to where I live
2. It was familiar to me
3. It was affordable

The alternatives were either too far away, not interesting enough or too expensive. I was interested in joining Miramar Golf Club but new membership there is currently closed due to the airport annexing a third of their grounds. They haven't yet decided whether they should become a 9-hole course or a thirteen-hole course.

Mornington Golf Club uses the public Berhampore golf course as its course. 

Established in 1916 and based at the Berhampore Golf Course in Wellington, NZ, Mornington Golf Club was founded as a public course to make golf accessible. Originally the Wellington Municipal Golf Club, it rebranded in 1919 and has operated for over 100 years on a challenging, hilly 18-hole layout in the Wellington Town Belt.

Key Historical Highlights
Establishment (1915-1916): Founded following efforts by Dr. Robert A. Cameron to create a public course, which officially opened on October 30, 1915, as the Wellington Municipal Golf Club.
Renaming (1919): The men's club became known as the Mornington Golf Club, and the women's club merged to form the Mornington Ladies Golf Club.
Sunday Play Battles: Early in its history, the club was involved in legal battles to allow golf to be played on Sundays, which was eventually permitted.
Centenary (2016): The club celebrated its centenary over the Wellington Anniversary weekend in January 2016.
Community Hub: Known as a friendly,, multi-sport complex, the club now hosts various activities including disc golf and indoor bowls.
Located only five minutes from central Wellington, the course offers a hilly terrain with, historically, a largely unchanged, challenging layout.

 - Google AI Overview

I can attest to the "largely unchanged, challenging layout".

The original clubrooms next to Wakefield Park are now used by Wellington Soccer and the club has taken over the old and larger Mornington Bowling Club premises. Sadly the bowling club greens are now unused.

I used to play at Berhampore golf course when I was at school. 

At first my brother and I played with some Vogeltown friends when we were quite young. We bought an old set of clubs that would be valuable antiques now if they were still intact. They had hickory wood shafts and quaint Scottish names like 'Mashie',  MacTosh', Driving Iron', Niblick', 'Jigger', 'Blaster', 'Brassie', 'Baffy' and 'Spoon'. We had to scavenge in the gorse bushes to find balls to play with (golf balls back in the 1960s were comparatively much more expensive than they are today) and if we found some very good ones we would sell these to adult players for a half-crown.

Later, at college Chelman, Christiansen, Lyons, Romijn and occasional others would play most Saturday mornings - early at 7AM. It was an 18 hole course with 9 holes each side of Island Bay Parade then. I remember every Friday night really looking forward to the next morning and staying up too late watching on TV 'The Wild Wild West' and afterwards Sam Snead's golf programme hoping to get some tips. 

At university I used to occasionally play at Berhampore with Tony, Mike, Roger and sometimes Richard. I gave Tony some of the old antique golf clubs to play with to replace the hockey stick he had, having bought a few new Slazenger clubs for myself. This didn't make either of us better players. The course had changed to 13 holes on one side of the road and 5 holes on the other which never seemed as good. I guess that the fact that two of the holes on the 9 hole course on the East side of The Parade required hitting over Mount Albert Road from the tees worried some city traffic planners (and their lawyers) which forced the layout change.

The course always was a challenge being known as a 'goat track' and was, and still is host to what seems like Wellington's largest quota of gorse bushes. Initially I regretted joining as my golf play on my first outings was atrocious but the last couple of times I've improved and 'found my mojo'. I was thinking that the course is too challenging for me (almost every hole is severely uphill or downhill) but playing a few more times should increase my fitness and stamina.

I'll end this first part with an interesting historical fact.

Shelley's older relatives (maybe aunty and uncle or great aunty and great uncle) almost bought a house in either Emerson Street or Stanley Street next to Berhampore golf course.

I would never have known this if I hadn't taken one of Richard's Bass Bag tours of Wellington. This was one of the more interesting highlights of the tour of course.