A Fair Way to Go for Golf

For a seemingly sleepy hamlet—nestled in mulga scrub on an uncharacteristic hill above the Nullarbor, close to the South Australian border—Eucla has a work ethic that could put many city folk to shame. As well as an industrious roadhouse, police station, meteorological office and quarantine center, the 50-resident village is a hub for shark fishing and starling shooting (the bird is considered a pest in Western Australia). “We’re either sleeping or working,” says local mechanic Rodney Fowler, 60, proudly wearing his eucla spirit of the desert windcheater.

Which makes the town’s main social event, the annual Eucla Golf Day in May, something of a wingding. They’ve even had clergymen from Esperance, 900 km away, drive in for the bash, which last year raised $A5,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Considering the state of the rocky course spiked with grass (fairway 9 also doubles as a rifle range, but not on the same day), that says a lot about the town’s ability to put on a party spread. Even the police are roped in for the occasion. “Before Golf Day, we had to pull all the weeds out of the greens,” says Constable First Class Emma Mitten, 25.

For the rest of the year, the course lies mainly dormant, except when giant gray kangaroos come to graze, or roadhouse workers Craig Cooke and Kris Hutchison come for R and R. (New Zealander Hutchison, 23, prefers the nearby mini-golf course—”It’s cool.”) For Port Lincoln-born Cooke, 34, it’s sometimes necessary to get away from the relative rat race of the Nullarbor. “A lot happens out of Eucla,” he insists. “We’ve had suicides, cyclists go under trucks, cars flip over—you name it.” But they’ve yet to see a hole in one.