Our History
How it all started
The Nomads Golf Club started back in 1960 with a small core of businessmen enjoying each other's company on a golf course. The South African Nomads as an organisation has donated to various charitable organisations over the more than 50 years of its existence. Nomads has a membership of over 3000 members belonging to 12 clubs in South Africa, 3 clubs in Zimbabwe, 1 club in Botswana, 1 club in New Zealand and 5 clubs in Australia.
Nomads has an excellent reputation in the South African golfing community as being a superbly organised and very efficient club. The local golf clubs enjoy hosting the Nomads because of their discipline, dress code and the manner in which the members conduct themselves both on and off the golf course.
Nomads members throughout the country also assist with the on course marshalling and score control at all South African PGA Golf tour events.
The South African Nomads Golf Club is run by a national executive committee selected on an annual basis by the various Nomad Club committees around the country. The committee system is run on continuity and is run in a very professional business-like manner.
Origins of the the club in Australia
The Nomads Golf Club of Australia was inaugurated in November of 2003 in Sydney led by Wayne Richardson, a former Southern Natal Nomad Captain. Enthusiasm for the club grew very quickly and a further Club was established in Sydney during June 2005 with the two Clubs becoming known as Sydney North and Sydney Hills respectively. Regrettably the initial burst of enthusiasm displayed by the Sydney Hills Club was not sustained and its members were reincorporated into the Sydney North Club in December 2006.
A former Gauteng Nomad, Paul McIlroy saw an opportunity to form a Nomad club in Brisbane while playing with a social golf group called Springaroos. With the permission of the members and after a trial period of five months, the club was converted to the now Nomads Golf Club Brisbane on 27th July 2008, with 46 founder members.
In 2011 the growth of the Nomads club in Sydney once again saw fit to establish a second club in the area and the Sydney South Club was inaugurated under the captaincy of Tony Gooding and a small group of members from the Sydney North Club. The club is growing strongly and was well represented at the third Australian National Tournament in October 2011.
The fourth club has now been inaugurated in Perth in July 2013 with a founding captain an ex Sydney Nomad John Erasmus. The club membership now has a mix of South Africans, Zimbabweans, Brits, New Zealanders and Australians which is testament to the core values of the Nomads organisation as a whole.
The National President Nomads Australia along with several other members travel to South Africa to participate in their National Tournament each year. This is a great experience being a part of the largest amateur tournament in the world and a wonderful week of fun and camaraderie meeting other members from all other Nomad clubs around the world.
The possibilities for future development within Australia, are endless and whilst assistance is readily given to those wanting to form a Nomads Golf Club, the over-riding consideration for acceptance is that, allowing for modifications which are necessitated by local circumstances, the fundamental Principles of the SA Nomads Constitution are upheld - "furtherance of golf, support of those less fortunate than ourselves and fellowship".