ABOUT US

The golf and euchre fraternity traces its origins to the guilds and craftsmen who built golf courses in medieval Europe, where members devised secret methods of recognition, including the use of strange and occasionally amusing nicknames.

Members believe the club provides a code for building character based on the application of spiritual, ethical and moral standards to the games of golf and euchre.  Belief in a Supreme Being (Right Bower or Handicapper) is a prerequisite for membership, though all faiths are accepted.

The Club was established in 1812 and still meets at the Earlwood Hotel Grand Lodge on Homer Street.  Inside the public bar exists a hierarchical world of nicknames and secret handshakes, where raised glasses denote seniority, and where Worshipful Masters, Grand Wizards and King Poobahs administer Club business.

Long cloaked in ancient all-male rituals practised in strict tournament secrecy "north of the Hawkesbury", the movement is seeking to introduce new blood in a bid to halt a decline in their aging membership.  Change has never come easily to the Club, but new recruits are no longer required to just remove their trousers during initiation ceremonies.  Initiates must now also remove their underwear and bare their chests to prove they are not women.

The Earlwoodians like to say they are not a secret club, only a club with secrets.  To improve their image, the doors to one of their most elaborate, and hitherto, one of the most secret ceremonies - the issuing of tournament handicaps by Tubby, the Grand Wizard of Figures and Bovine Culture - is being thrown open to the public.  "People see us as being far more secretive than we really are.  The idea of having an open handicapping day is to show people, including our members, that they have nothing to fear from the process.  It is just like a bad haircut," says Grand Master Per-Ulrik Fatcatsson, "In two weeks time, who cares?"

Fatcatsson, the man charged with leading the club into the new millennium, has forwarded to the King Poobahs (the Club's Board of Directors) a petition signed by a quorum of members to:

The Poobahs believe all three motions are within the spiritual, ethical and moral standards of good Club governance, and they will be voted on at the next Annual General Meeting.