AUSTRALIAN Golf Digest editor Steve Keipert explains the attractions of the nation’s 10 best courses.
1. Royal Melbourne composite course (12 from the west course, six from the east), designed by Alister Mackenzie (west course, 1931) and Alex Russell (east course, 1932). It held the President’s Cup in 1998, and will host it again in 2011. It’s widely regarded as the best in Austalia. This area of Melbourne is blessed with perfect terrain and topography. My favourite hole is a par four in the middle – it’s quite short, and you can land the ball on the green from the tee, but if you miss it you’re dead. The bunkers are huge.
2. New South Wales, La Perouse, Sydney, Alister Mackenzie (1928)/Eric Apperly (1937,51). Australia’s most scenic course, on the north side of the entrance to Botany Bay. There are huge tankers going past, and they don’t move very fast, so you can play an entire hole with a tanker as a backdrop. It’s an amazing sight – you’re only 25 minutes from the CBD on a tiny peninsula. It’s well designed, too. The four par-threes and four par-fives all run in different directions, so unless the wind changes while you play, you are guaranteed one of each will have the wind coming from a different side. For a course that’s 80 years old, it s a very smart piece of design.
3. Kingston Heath, Victoria, Dan Soutar (1925). Another sandbelt course (near Royal Melbourne). It’s got some classically designed holes. The overall site and vegetation give rise to huge bunkers. The bunkers were designed to look like they were always there. They fit the landscape. Some bunkers on golf courses look deliberately man made, but these are the opposite.
4. Ellerston, Hunter Valley, NSW, Greg Norman and Bob Harrison (2001). This is the Packer family’s private course. Two things stand out: the condition of the course - it has a full staff of, I guess, 15 to 18 people, yet it might see only 20 rounds on a busy week. The other aspect is it is so remote. It’s up in the hills. You lose phone reception 45 minutes before you get there. You have to drive a kilometre from the club house to the first tee. Playing here, you realise that golf is a game where nature sets its part. You feel in tune with the surroundings. The story about this course is that Kerry never played it. It was only finished in 2002, and his health didn’t allow him.
5. Barnbougle Dunes, near Launceston, Tasmania, Tom Doak and Michael Clayton (2004). Only four years old. It’s set right up against Bass Strait. It has a touch of the NSW course about it. It’s also like a little slice of Scotland or Ireland – exposed, windswept, natural dunes. It’s a special place. It is our highest ranked public course. Even if you showed up without booking you’d stand a chance of walking on. The main asset is the site. It would have taken a terrible job to stuff it up. I’ve heard that there has been approval for another course on an adjacent site that is even better.
6. Royal Adelaide, Herbert Rymill and CL Gardiner (1904)/ Alister Mackenzie (1926). This course hosted the World Amateur Teams Championship this month (October), which is a big deal. It’s a very old-style course. There are three primary courses in Adelaide, and this is the best of them. It’s beautiful, with big stands of trees. The road into the course goes through the 18th fairway, and a railway track runs between the first and second fairways. If you wait long enough you’ll see a passenger train go through. A very quirky, quaint course.
7. Metropolitan, Melbourne, JB Mackenzie (1906)/ Dick Wilson (1959). Another sandbelt. This course has long been regarded as being in the best condition. The fairways make carpet look ordinary. There are some approaches to design that make maintenance easier. This course hosted a World Golf Championship event in 2001, and Stuart Appleby was quoted saying that Metropolitan was in better condition than Augusta. Augusta is manufactured; Metropolitan is natural.
8. National, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Greg Norman and Bob Harrison (2000). This is the only course in Australia that has 54 holes. We chose the Moonah course. It’s on the other side of Bass Strait from Barnbougle, on the southern coast of Victoria. It’s a very exposed piece of land, with gnarled moonah trees, half bent over. I’ve played there in November, and it was freezing – I was in a beanie and a jacket. That’s almost how the weather should be like. It’s a bit sadistic to say this, but this course is designed along the lines of the best in Britain, so you almost should have bad weather. I’d suggest spring or autumn, but I imagine if you played there in winter and rugged up in front of a fire and watched the wild and woolly weather after playing a round it would appeal to the senses.
9. The Australian, Sydney, Jack Nicklaus (1976). This course is five minutes from my office. Kerry packer was a long-time member, back when he was getting behind golf. It was the home of the Australian Open in the 1970s. It’s a bit American style, kind of flattish with big bunkers, not your rolling hills and terrain. It’s a really in-your-face, difficult course. There are a few spots where you get nice unique perspectives of the CBD, looking straight back to Centrepoint.
10. Royal Sydney, Carnegie Clark (1913)/ Ross Watson (2003). The Open will be held here this year. It’s a bit like a sandbelt course, but at Rose Bay, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. It’s had some redesigns, mainly on the bunkers. Now they’re the same design and style. It’s right in suburbia, among the houses and units. You can hear a bit of traffic in places. It’s a nice urban mix. The pros struggled here when the Open was here two years ago. Nobody took the course to pieces. I’ve only played it once. I birdied the first two holes. Then reality set in.
Australia’s top 100 courses is published biennailly in the Golf Digest. This list is an elaboration of the top ten from March 2008
