CLUB Banora has lost half its golf course to the swamp it was built on.

What was once a field of pristine fairways is now a wild, grassy landscape, riddled with dangerous hidden cracks.

But surprisingly the phenomenon has won the Leisure Dr club more new members than it has cost them.

Twin Towns Services Club general manager Rob Smith said a long dry period late last year caused the peat marsh underneath the course to dry out and break up.

Now, they've been forced to reduce their 18 holes to a modest nine.

It's not the first time the club, which is part of the Twin Towns Services Club group, has suffered such a fate.

In 2009, the same devastating cracking occurred.

Those crevices disappeared, but not before a golfer was injured.

"The problem is, the turf covers up where the cracks are," Mr Smith said.

"You can't identify it until someone has actually pointed it out to you or you actually fall into it."

While the future of the area remains uncertain, Mr Smith was confident it would never be used for golf again.

"It will end up being a swamp at the end of the day," he said.

"The problem is that peat when it dries out actually repels water.

"Even once the drought is broken it's not going to back to the way it was."

Mr Smith said filling the area was unlikely to be successful.

"One of the issues is that it's integral to the flood plan of Banora Point.

"The golf course acts as a retardation point for water in the event of a major flood.

"Once (water) gets to a high level, it fills up the golf course before it goes into anyone else's house.

"You can't do anything that's going to affect that.

"It's green space, it will end up being green space.

Exactly how that transpires will play out over time."

Fortunately, Mr Smith said it's the "worst" part of the course that they've lost.

"There's been a significant amount of work gone into (the remaining) nine holes in the last five years, so they were the most stable ones out there," he said.

"We've kept the best of the best and we've lost the worst of the worst."

While about 50 hardcore golfers have moved on to other clubs, he said there'd been a resurgence in social players.

"Membership is actually building at the moment, so we're finding people are enjoying nine holes of golf," he said.

"Of course there are a number of people who simply left.

Anybody who was a serious golfer was going to go over to one of those full-blown golf courses."