Turning golf courses into cemeteries. . .here’s a city that wants to do just that

November 13, 2025/Cemetery, Regulations/

Golf courses, in this day and age, are incredibly expensive to build. It’s not only the land acquisition costs but you have the costs involved in shaping the fairways and the greens, building a clubhouse and equipment garages, and, of course, the holding costs while the landscape grows into a playable course.

I don’t exactly know what it costs to build a cemetery. You’ve got acquisition costs and you have the build-out of columbariums and mausoleums, so I’m sure it is not inexpensive either. And, like a golf course growing into playing shape, you also have a holding costs for certain forms of revenue such as interment costs until deaths have occured.

There is a debate going on right now in Australia’s largest city about turning the Carnarvon Golf Course into a “modern memorial park“. It turns out that about 10,000 people are buried in Sydney each year and the Metropolitan Memorial Parks (MMP) CEO Denise Ora claims that there is a “pressing need” for more burial space.

One of her suggestions is to take over the Carnarvon Golf Course and turn it into a cemetery. Ms. Ora is quoted in this article from ABC News Australia as saying, “Our vision for the Carnarvon site is to create a modern memorial park that not only meets essential burial needs but provides a public space for the whole community.”

As you can imagine, not everybody is excited about the Metropolitan Memorial Parks’ plan for Carnarvon Golf Course. Local Member of Parliament (MP) Lynda Voltz described the plan as “lazy and short-sighted“.

Voltz continued with these comments in this article that appeared in Australian Golf Digest, “To look at any golfing facility and other sporting facilities as just land that they can make alternative plans for… this is the sixth golf course that we’ve seen under attack in Sydney, and it won’t be the last, but the fact is Carnarvon is our busiest sporting precinct. Between Carnarvon and the soccer fields at Coleman Park, they are full all the time. Every single day of the week, it’s packed with cars. There’s 2,000 members, there’s a waiting list. There are 1,500 booked rounds a week, and then there’s walk-ins on top of it. . . . . .You’re talking about working class people here [who enjoy] this cheap, public golf course. . . . . ”

According to the Australian Golf Digest article, a round of golf at Canarvon Golf Course is priced at AUS $49 which is the equivilent of US $30. . . .

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I find this controversy interesting. While I understand that people want cemeteries near where they live, I had not thought that a country as expansive as Australia would have worries about running out of cemetery space. . . . especially when they have a 70% cremation rate at this time. And, space for cremation memorialization is less than would be necessary than for full-body burials.

I also find it interesting, and I question that in a finite area such as a city limits if a cemetery would have a majority of citizens choose it over the other options of having a golf course and/or other recreational facilities available for the residents. It will be interesting to see what happens with this situation as it moves forward.

A Not So Serious Take on This Subject: I’ve been a big fan of the 1980 filmed comedy movie “Caddyshack” over the years. It is one of my all-time favorite movies and in the day of video movie rentals and/or purchases, I’m guessing that I had watched it over 20 times. One of the favorite lines of the movie is spoke by comedian Rodney Dangerfield playing a wealthy real estate developer when he says, “I tell ya, country clubs and cemeteries, the biggest wasters of prime real estate. Dead people, they don’t want to be buried nowadays. Ecology, right?”

Related — Here is an archived article about cemeteries, golf courses, and the use of water. It actually refers to the Dangerfield line in the article.

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