“She is the toughest woman I know – she’s tough.” The thoughts of her daughter Corinne ring true after meeting 96-year-old Marg Andrews, whose unbridled love of sport helped her endure her childhood days during World War II. It’s a love that still burns strong today, with Marg a regular weekly golfer at Garfield. Gazette Sports Editor Dave Nagel reports.
Beneath her warm and welcoming veneer lies a granite-like toughness forged from a farrier of life on the farm and the anvil of World War II.
This is the story of Marg Andrews – who began her 97th year on February 1, 2026 – whose indomitable spirit and unbridled passion for sport has her still patrolling the fairways of the Garfield Golf Club on a weekly basis.
Her appetite for the game was crafted not along after the fairways had first been carved at the Pakenham Golf Club in the early ‘80s; but now continues at Garfield as the future of her former stomping ground – in her current hometown – remains abidingly unclear.
While current decision making seems predominantly based on financial impact; Andrews remembers the Pakenham Golf Club as being a key social fabric of the town.
Marg, and her late-husband Martyn, enjoyed the naivety of the club’s innocent beginnings.
“When we started playing, we joined the club because Pakenham had just opened,” Marg recalls.
“They needed people there but none of us knew how to play golf, we all just went out and hit and hoped for the best.
“The longer you played the better you became.
“We had wonderful days at Pakenham, wonderful tournaments, we had heaps of people that came from all over the place to play golf there.
“They loved coming to Pakenham because it was very sociable and very friendly.
“They loved the course because it was always kept in good condition.”
The move from the original clubhouse on Oaktree Drive to Deep Creek Reserve was the beginning of the end for the Pakenham Golf Club; disengaging those that had dedicated their hard-work and sweat over many years.
“A lot of the history is gone; the honour boards, things like that, they’re all gone and it’s very sad,” she said.
“Finishing your round of golf and sitting in a restaurant is not the same as having a clubhouse to love and cherish.”
But Pakenham’s implausible loss is Garfield’s gain, with Andrews loving her time in her new surroundings.
The fabric of her home town may not be returning anytime soon, but the warm feeling of having a loving golf club to call home…well, that most certainly has.
“I thought about Drouin when Pakenham closed, but that was a little bit further to travel so went to Garfield and have absolutely loved every minute of it,” Andrews says with a sparkle in her eye.
“It was so friendly from day one; it feels like home…it really does feel like home.
“It feels like Pakenham used to; and the course is lovely too.”
Marg Andrews was born in Berwick in 1930 and lived a nomadic existence as a child.
She and her eight siblings – seven brothers and one sister – called towns such as Narre Warren, Noble Park and Springvale home.
“I went to seven different schools,” she says with a laugh.
“Dad liked to move around a bit.
“It was pretty hard because when I went to school it was the second world war.
“It was hard, very hard, you couldn’t buy a lot of things because things were rationed out, you had to have coupons; but the second world war ended when I was 15.
“I remember getting sore toes from wearing shoes that were second hand, but that was the only choice.
“Two of my brothers; Len and Wally, both went to the war and both returned safely.
“That’s all I pretty much knew during school.”
Despite having very few material assets as a child, Marg had a gift that would soon set her apart from the rest.
It was an ability that was a leveller amongst the classes; the ability to run!
She ran everywhere as a kid…and did it quickly.
“I could run as fast as anything as a little kid, and when I went to school I just kept running,” she said.
“I beat all the kids in the school; I was always a fast runner.
“Running and sport were my passions and something I couldn’t stop doing.
“All I wanted to do was play sport, nothing else, nothing else mattered.
“Any sport, tennis, netball, running, you name it, any sport and I was into it.
“And sport never leaves you; it only gets worse (laughs).”
Marg became fiercely independent after school, first working in a cake shop in Dandenong before applying successfully for a job as a waitress at Gibby’s Coffee Lounge in the city.
Five years of travel would then take its toll, returning to work for Yarra Falls before a stint with the grocery store Moran and Cato.
Her earliest days in the workforce allowed her to join the elite Glenhuntly Sports Athletics Club, with weekly training sessions at Caulfield racecourse preparing her for Saturday competition at Royal Melbourne Park.
Some of her quickest running was performed after training; running scared through the dark expanses of Caulfield on her way home.
“I joined Glenhuntly at 17 and it was very exciting,” Marg remembers.
“Then I started to love dancing and it was hard to do both because you’re using different muscles.
“Then there was basketball, which is now netball, just playing with friends and then playing for a club once more girls came along.”
Marg and Martyn met at dance at the Dandenong Town Hall when Marg was 21 and she was married at 22.
They had three children, Trudi, Lindsay and Corinne and forged a hard-earned life on a market garden in Keysborough.
The Andrews family was well connected around the district; family members holding important roles in the City of Dandenong and helping with the building of long-loved monuments.
The Market Gardener’s Association would have picnics during those days, with running races a key part of the fun.
“They had a woman that won every race, mum went in it and her father-in-law said ‘you’ll never win,” Corinne recalls, before Marg chimes in.
“They put me back a couple of metres, but because this lady was getting old they put her about 20 metres in front.”
Marg beat the other runners by miles, despite being pregnant with her children at the time.
Marg and her family lived in Keysborough, during which time they bought a dairy farm in Nar Nar Goon.
They then sold the market garden in Keysborough and became residents of Pakenham in 1973.
The family then built a house on the Nar Nar Goon dairy farm on Seymour Road and moved there in 1985.
And despite being 55 at the time, Marg’s love of sport had not waned.
She played golf, squash and tennis and was also a much-sought after netball umpire, sitting for her badges when Trudi took up the game in her days at Dandenong West.
“We didn’t have umpires and the girls were getting knocked around: I couldn’t play but I took up umpiring to help the girls out,” she said.
“I sat for my badges and became an A Grade umpire and did that for about 20 years.”
Marg started umpiring at Pakenham; then followed her daughters to Nar Nar Goon, playing tennis for Tynong and Maryknoll while rearing calves on the farm.
The family all worked on the dairy farm, while paying homage to the days at Keysborough by growing some cabbage and spuds as well.
When those days in Nar Nar Goon were done, Marg and Martyn moved back to Pakenham.
A famous stretch in the town, namely Bald Hill Road, would change their lives forever.
Marg was driving and had a friend in the passenger seat, with Martyn in the back, when she was confronted with a truck that was reversing into a driveway.
The truck had no signage and its lights were out, Marg driving straight under it.
Her friend would die a month later, while Martyn was air-lifted to The Alfred with a suspected broken neck and suffering from a heart attack.
Marg was cut-out of the car and was smashed up down her left side.
She suffered severe foot and knee injuries, but the most long-lasting effects were to her left hand and wrist; which has five screws and a plate in it to this day.
“The surgeon said ‘it won’t look pretty, but you’ll be able to use it’,” Marg recalls.
Corinne chimes in…“She is the toughest woman I know – she’s tough.”
Martyn passed away two years ago, but left a mark on Marg by switching her VFL/AFL allegiance to Carlton, after she originally supported Geelong.
Bruce Doull, Stephen Kernahan and Craig Bradley are among her favourites, while a poster of tennis player John Newcombe took pride of place on her wall.
Sport, well it still plays a massive part in her life.
It’s not unusual for Marg to hit some plastic golf balls from her lounge room down through the hallway, while the remote for her television is still always searching for sport.
“I like every sport, I watch cricket, football, golf, I watch tennis, horseracing, anything that’s on,” she said.
“Jamie Melham is my favourite jockey; I love the way she rides.”
And despite her left hand and wrist still giving her trouble, Marg has no plans on giving up her weekly round at Garfield anytime soon.
“I would really miss it…If I didn’t have golf I would think ‘well what on earth am I doing’,” she says with a laugh.
“It means a lot to me and I am a lot fitter than most.
“I plan to play as long as I can.”
So, is the plan to play until 100?
“The golf club is hoping so; they’ve got it all lined up,” she says smiling.
“I’ll be the first one (aged 100) and they’ve got a party lined up at the golf club.
“What else am I going to do?”
