On a quiet morning at Victoria Golf Club, Collingwood premiership defender Jeremy Howe stepped onto the first tee barely warmed up, having rolled half a dozen putts on the practice green and called it preparation. What happened next secured his place in the club's folklore.
Howe pulled out a four-iron, aiming simply to find the fairway on a tricky short par four. Instead, he flushed it. The ball pitched eight feet short of the pin, rolled forward and vanished into the cup. A hole-in-one on a par four, known as an albatross, is one of golf's rarest feats. Players several holes away stopped mid-swing when they heard the eruption.
"A mate who started on the 13th said they heard blokes erupt," Howe later recalled. "Everyone just went ballistic."
It is exactly the kind of story Victoria Golf Club, which celebrates 123 years of history, loves to tell about itself. The club sits on Melbourne's celebrated sand belt, has hosted eight Australian Opens (four men's and four women's), and once welcomed former United States president George H. W. Bush, who shared in the tradition of a short drink with members on the 16th hole during the 1998 Presidents Cup visit to Melbourne.
The late Peter Thomson, five-time British Open champion and a life member of Victoria, once observed that what distinguished clubs like this was not the quality of the course or the grandeur of the buildings, but the membership itself and the accumulated achievements of decades. That membership today includes US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy and Australian Cricketers Association chief executive Paul Marsh, who also has a hole-in-one on the first to his name, a slam dunk no less.
Club captain Bruce Peacock describes the place as a sanctuary for its 1300 members, 70 per cent of whom live within a 10-minute drive of the gates. Thirty per cent of members are women, the highest proportion among the sand belt clubs by the club's own benchmarking. "One of the club's greatest strengths is its inclusivity and its social nature," Marsh said.
That self-image, however, was tested in 2022 when an internal dispute over governance quietly consumed months of institutional attention and eventually reached the Federal Court.
The Feud Behind the Fairways
Antonie Els, a South African-born hospitality executive, was recruited in 2021 as general manager with a mandate from the board to modernise club operations while preserving its traditions. He arrived with experience and optimism. "I'd never worked with a board with such a diverse skillset and so clear about where the club had misstepped," Els told this masthead from New Zealand, where he has since relocated.
Tensions surfaced midway through 2022. According to three sources familiar with the matter, the issues centred on compliance inside the clubhouse rather than any sweeping organisational overhaul. A prominent Melbourne lawyer who was a long-standing member of the club became the focal point of the conflict. The lawyer declined to participate in this story.
Els and two members lodged complaints against the lawyer and another member. Following an independent investigation, the board found the pair had breached the club's code of conduct and issued reprimands, which they accepted. The board went further, finding that statements made by the lawyer to Els constituted conduct "unworthy of a member" and proposed a 12-month membership suspension.
That suspension was never finalised. The lawyer commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia, seeking an injunction to prevent the club from making any finding of guilt or imposing a suspension without procedural fairness. In court documents obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald, five separate complaints were cited across the three complainants, focused on alleged breaches of integrity and mutual respect under the club's code of conduct.
The matter proceeded to court-ordered mediation and concluded with a confidential settlement reached without admissions of liability. Under the terms, the lawyer withdrew proceedings, accepted a reprimand and provided Els with a written apology. The apology, seen by this masthead, reads in part: "If what I have said or written has caused you distress or anguish, I apologise to you for that."
Els accepted the apology but said it did not fully reflect the gravity of what had occurred. "Balancing heritage with modern governance is never simple," he said. "Change can be uncomfortable." He acknowledged his status as an outsider may have complicated matters in an institution where trust is built slowly. The club's insurer contributed to legal costs.
Supporters of Els described his tenure as a necessary professionalisation of a club unaccustomed to formal scrutiny. Critics, from the other side of the dispute, viewed the changes as unwelcome interference in established customs. Both readings contain something worth taking seriously. Private member institutions have long operated on informal authority and social trust; the introduction of corporate governance disciplines can feel confrontational even when it is legally required. At the same time, accountability is not optional, and an organisation's constitution exists to be followed.
Els ultimately chose to leave. "There are moments in leadership when you have to weigh what is sustainable," he said. "Leaving was not an easy decision, but it was the right one for my wellbeing and for the long-term stability of the organisation." Club officials describe the legal dispute as a dark chapter in an otherwise proud history and say the club has moved on. Everyone involved, except Els himself, remains a member.
Howe, for his part, is looking to join them. On the day of his improbable albatross, his group finished 14-under, a score so extraordinary that rival teams jokingly accused them of cheating. He missed the post-round celebrations because his wife needed him at home. His teammate Lachie Schultz stayed to enjoy the moment. Some stories, though, travel without you.