Alan Landis

Alan Landis recalls the neon sign that illuminated the The Golf House near Central Station,s a famous Sydney landmark.

I believe the sign went up in 1961, 1962. My father [Jack Landis, orginal proprietor of the Golf House] had a very good friend called Harry Wittenberg who was the agent or whatever for Claude Neon and whether Dad came up with the idea or Harry Wittenberg did, I don’t know, and it went up – and Dad received an award and I remember it being on the wall in his office within a year or two of it going up. And we used to get phone calls all the time, people saying some of the globes had gone out, to let Dad know that they had to be fixed and Dad would say that was his night job, to hit the golf ball up there. And he always used to say that if he got in a taxi anywhere and said, “Take me to the Golf House”, that it was a landmark, people knew exactly where it was. People could practice golf upstairs, like a mini golf range: had a net over the top, I remember that, and had a video camera – that was one of the first video cameras I’d ever seen. It was one of the first places in Sydney one could buy second hand golf clubs; in fact, it was the biggest second hand golf store in Australia. All the professionals didn’t know what to do with their second hand clubs and Dad would be sought out for his knowledge and everything else as well.

Interviewer
Richard Raxworthy