Situated 986km away from its nearest capital city, Adelaide, and 250km from its closest main town, Ceduna, the Aboriginal community of Yalata isn’t flushed with entertainment options.
But the local school Yalata Anangu now has its very own golf course.
The school recently built a four-hole course from scratch for its small number of students to learn to play and love golf.
The course was created using gypsum to create the putting greens, tin cans for the holes and pins made from pieces of bamboo.
The vision of developing a course on the school’s grounds came from teacher and MyGolf school ambassador Greg Seiffert.
Seiffert wanted to give his students a chance to learn a great sport that was healthy and positive and first introduced his students to golf to by taking them to a nearby oval to hit some balls.
And they absolutely loved it.
“I am doing this because I have found that the kids really love playing golf,” said Seiffert, who said such opportunities for organised sport and construction were rare in Yalata.
“As I’ve taken the older ones over to the oval to hit a ball back and forth they have loved it, so I came up with the idea of putting a few holes around the school oval which will give them a challenge.”
His small idea turned into one that the whole school rallied behind and its community united to help.
“Over the weeks, I have tried to get each of the four classes to help me with the build of the course and have also incorporated it as a project for the senior students who have assisted in drawing up the course design.”
“We now have a four-hole course. Two holes are about 145m, which will be par-fours and the other two are about 90m, which are our par-threes.”
So what’s next at Yalata? Seiffert is already planning to create a mini golf course at the school.
Who knows? Maybe the distance from Yalata to Royal Adelaide is being slashed every week.