"You know what, you fellas? We should have a golf course on this island."

John Gardner remembers the day his late mother, Furley, put forward her brilliant suggestion.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images of a person who has died.

It was 2013, and a public meeting was drawing to a close in one of Australia's most remote communities — Truwana/Cape Barren Island, in Bass Strait.

"We were all getting up ready to leave and then Mum put her hand up in the air," he recalled.

The local Aboriginal community had been independently running the island since 2005, when the Tasmanian government handed the land back.

It had never had a golf course.

But when Furley raised the idea at that meeting, John remembers every hand shooting up

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