H.L. 'Cargie' Rymill doyen of design with input for four major Adelaide metro 20th Century golf courses
H.L. “Cargie” Rymill with the four major Adelaide metropolitan golf courses – (clockwise from top left) Royal Adelaide, Kooyonga, Glenelg and Grange West – that he had a hand in designing during the 20th Century. Disputes with club commitees became a theme of Rymill's involvements.
Images courtesy Golf Architecture Magazine and (by Gary Libson) on Great Golf Courses of Australia website
H.L. “Cargie” Rymill remarkably had design input into all four major metropolitan golf courses in 20th Century Adelaide: Royal Adelaide, Kooyonga, Grange and Glenelg. In his day, Rymill was considered the font of golf course design knowledge in South Australia and was highly regarded throughout Australia for his expertise.
Herbert Lockett Rymill was born in Adelaide in 1870, the second youngest child of wealthy Henry Rymill and wife Lucy. He grew up in the family home, the Firs (later Rymall House) on East Terrace, Adelaide city. Herbert’s nickkname “Cargie” (pronounced Carjee) came from a clown character in a play at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide city in the early 1900s. Rymill was a champion pigeon shooter in South Australia and Victoria for Adelaide Gun Club.
After an early accident, Rymill never got a driver’s licence. He rode his bicycle – including a round trip to Mount Gambier – and walked but mostly used public transport, especially trains. This suited him when he took up golf and the (later Royal) Adelaide club had a new train station, named Golf Links, on the Grange-to-city line that bisected its Seaton course, opened in 1906.
Rymill moved to Kooynga, the name of his seafront house at Kirkcaldy, near Henley Beach, and close to the rail line and Adelaide golf clubhouse. Rymill had joined Adelaide club in 1903 and was on its committee and in charge of its greens when it was based at Glenelg course before it looked at moving to a swampy site at Seaton.
The possibilities presented by what became Seaton’s famous “crater hole” at the 11th wowed Rymill: “I have never seen St. Andrews but if is like this – so go and buy the 240 acres!” The club did, for less than £10 an acre. Rymill and club secretary C.L. Gardiner laid out an 18-hole Seaton course, opened in 1906. That year, with Rymill now honorary secretary, the club decided to get a professional opinion from Dan Soutar of Sydney on the course.
Before club members saw Soutar’s plan, Rymill and the committee decided on an alternative, anxious to secure the 1910 Australian open and amateur championships. Rymill added 90 bunkers to the layout. Most of these – especially the “steeplechase” bunkers across the fairways – were criticised by British golf course architect Alistair Mackenzie when he viewed the course in 1926.
In 1910, Rymill was made Adelaide club life member but became a law unto himself as club secretary and was reprimanded for failing to heed the committee on work to prevent the 15th green from flooding. Rymill resigned from the committee, with a 2000-word letter justifying his actions.
In 1922, a train strike forced Rymill to return home from the city by the tram. As the tram crossed the kilometre viaduct over flood-prone Reedbeds south of Henley Beach Road at Lockleys, Rymill saw May’s Paddocks for sale. Rymill had found the site for his golf course. His wide circle of influential friends invested in his project and Kooyonga Golf Club was born.
The Kooyonga directors agreed to him being appointed sole course architect and general supervisor. Again, Rymill’s wish for total control saw the committee oust him from all authority in 1933. Before that, in 1925, Rymill was engaged to lay out a nine-hole course for the Mount Lofty Golf Estate Ltd, set up by Royal Adelaide club members wanting to extend their summer season, at Stirling East in the Adelaide Hills.
Rymill also laid out an 18-hole course for fledgling Grange Golf Club in 1926 on land just northwest of Royal Adelaide. This west course was modified by Vern Morcom in the 1950s but mostly followed Rymill’s routing. Also in 1926, Glenelg Golf Links Limited employed Rymill to design their new links. Rymill produced a plan but again was dismissed after a dispute with the committee.
Another course design claimed by Rymill was Mount Gambier, in South Australia's southeast, but the club attributed it to Rufus Stewart, the Kooyonga professional.
