When club captain Mark Smith first floated the idea of getting the Crookwell Golf Club involved in the Cancer Council's Longest Day fundraiser, he had no idea how big it would become.
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But now, just days after 21 Crookwell golfers played 72 holes of golf for charity, nearly $30,000 dollars has been raised with further donations promised.
Smith said the reaction and support of the community has been "absolutely phenomenal", and explained that the idea was conceived through a conversation with a friend.
"When we first started, I had a yarn to a mate that I play a lot of golf with," he said.
"I asked him 'Do you want to play in this 72-hole day with me?' and he said he was keen.
"I asked him if he thought we could get a group of four, and he thought we surely could. I put the word out through a couple of people, and they were keen, and then a few more joined and we ended up with 21. It was absolutely amazing."
Those 21 players hit the Crookwell course at just after 5am on Saturday, before it was even light. Thankfully the thunderstorms which were to hit later that night held off throughout the day, and most of the groups finished in between 10-12 hours.
"We got very, very lucky with the weather," Smith said.
"It was fairly warm during the day but every now and then there was a bit of a breeze, and later on there was a bit of cloud cover. We got very lucky there."
The day of golf on Saturday was preceded by an auction on Friday night, in which the community was invited to come out and bid on different players and teams to raise money, half of which went directly to the Cancer Council while the other half went into the prize pool.
More than $16,000 was raised that night - an effort which embodied the community support behind the fundraiser.
This, Smith added, was also in play online.
"We had a Longest Day page, and the Crookwell Golf Club was the team, and then there was individuals on it," he said.
"We all went around and drummed up a bit of support for it, but people were seeing it on social media who don't know us and have no association with golf, and they were sponsoring us too, that's how good it was.
"The atmosphere in the club for the last few weeks, I've never felt a vibe like that at the club before, it was just unreal."
Due to the success of the event, Smith said the club hopes to make it an annual fixture.
He thanked the volunteers who were out on the course on Saturday to support the players, along with Floyd Davies and the Crookwell IGA, who supplied the food and drink throughout the day on the course.
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