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FOR MORE THAN SEVEN DECADES, LAKE KARRINYUP HAS BEEN WIDELY ACCLAIMED AS ONE OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA’S BEST COURSES. HOWEVER, A RECECTLY COMPLETED MAJOR REDESIGN HAS BREATHED NEW LIFE INTO THE CHAMPIONSHIP LAYOUT.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY: BRENDAN JAMEs

The short downhill par-3 12th hole is an absolute gem.

One of the best amateur golfers in Australia in the 1920s was Alex Russell. The Victorian pastoralist and Cambridge University graduate served in the Great War and returned home to the family property and resumed his love affair with the game of golf.

His greatest moment as a player came with victory in the 1924 Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, where he was a member. It seemed obvious to the committee of the Royal Melbourne club when they sold the town section of their course in 1927 and financed the visit of world famous golf course architect, Dr Alistair Mackenzie, that Russell should work with the Scot on the remodelling of Royal Melbourne’s East and West courses.

When Mackenzie left Australia having only seen one hole of his now world acclaimed West course finished, Russell oversaw the completion of the West and East courses. He then became a sought after course designer.

The founding committee of Lake Karrinyup Golf Club approached Russell with their plan to build a course on rolling land north of Perth, which in the 1920s might have seemed as far away as the moon. But the challenge of building a course in such an isolated place appealed to Russell and within a few months he was on site.

Dense Tuart forest was cleared, greens formed and bunkers dug and by the end of 1928 the course was opened for play. Having spent a lot of his university days studying famous Scottish courses, Russell was of the belief that rules of golf architecture were made to be broken, which is why Russell’s Lake Karrinyup routing features some blind tee shots.

Apart from being well studied in golf course design, Russell was also a visionary and of ‘his’ Lake Karrinyup layout he predicted as early as 1928 that play would be longer and, to combat this, new tees and some tightening up of the course might be required

Evidence of Clayton's impressive bunker remodelling can be seen on Lake Karrinyup's opening hole.

Fast forward nearly 80 years – a period in which the club hosted four Australian Opens and several international tournaments including the Johnnie Walker Classic – and the club decided it was time to heed Russell’s prediction.

During the past two years every green and bunker at Lake Karrinyup has been rebuilt as part of a complete redesign program of the undulating layout overseen by course designer Mike Clayton. “Most of the greens were changed significantly and the brief for the bunkers was along the lines of Alex Russell’s original instruction to ‘build them the way they are in Hunter’s book’,” Clayton said. Robert Hunter was the author of The Links – one of the four bibles of golf architecture – and he, like Russell, worked alongside Mackenzie in the United States.

“But Russell’s wishes were never seriously followed by the construction crew and he even made changes when he went back to Lake Karrinyup in 1933.

“The club had Russell’s original drawings which we looked at but so many of the original greens had been changed over the years like the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 8th, 12th, 14th and 15th while quite a few had too much slope, like the 6th, 11th, 16th and 18th. So 11 of the greens had serious issues in terms of Russell’s originals.

“Unlike Yarra Yarra and the East course at Royal Melbourne, he couldn’t spend much time on site and so much of his plan was not well translated onto the ground.

“So that said, I would not say we poured over the archival information because unlike the best work of that time on the sand-belt there was nothing that great to restore.”

The greens and bunker changes, for anyone who played Lake Karrinyup prior to the redesign, are immediately apparent. The bunkers, apart from their placement, depth and size, have a rugged appearance, which is fast becoming a Clayton design trademark.

From the opening hole, the Clayton’s bunkering impresses and injects a subtle amount of ‘wow’ factor into first 15 minutes of your round. The large sandy hazards short and long of the green on the 274-metre par-4 1st hole also set the scene for what is to come.

The rollercoaster par-4 2nd hole finishes with one of the more heavily bunkered greens on the course.

The greenside bunkers on the 427-metre par-4 2nd hole are superb. They certainly prove intimidating as you stand over a long approach with the ball above your feet, knowing a large bunker left awaits if you turn the shot over, while the scheme of bunkers right will catch the blocked shot.

One of the great new features of the uphill par-5 11th is the short-cut bacon rasher-shaped bunker that lies in the middle of the fairway. This forces you to think about your playing line from the tee, rather than blazing away with the driver. The best line, which does shorten the hole slightly, is to the right of the bunker but this avenue is narrower.

Clayton also addressed an issue some – including this writer, who falls in the majority of right-handers who play with a fade – were critical of many holes at Lake Karrinyup.

“The course always favoured a right-to-left (righthander) player – especially off the tee … that was especially the case on the 2nd, 4th, 13th and 18th and there was hardly anything the other way – either off the tee or into the green,” Clayton said. “So we paid attention to redressing the balance a little for the left to right player. For example, the 13th and 18th holes both favoured big hooked tee shots and then both greens favoured a draw as well. We turned both greens to have them favour a left-to-right shape. “We also took out some trees that had been planted inside Russell’s original tree clearing lines and had grown up and out. This altered the design intent and hurt the integrity of some holes.”

Clayton said while some holes – the 3rd, 11th, 13th and 14th – were lengthened with new back tees, the 12th and 18th holes were actually shortened.

The 135-metre downhill 12th hole might just be my new favourite short par-3. It rates as the easiest hole on the course and features just one bunker, short left of the putting surface. But the green is small by Lake Karrinyup standards and the closely mown surrounds, right and long, have a Royal Melbourne look and feel about them.

Russell, I believe, would certainly approve.

FACT FILE
LENGTH: 6.505 metres (Black tees), 6,265 (Blue), 6,110 (White).
PAR: 72. ACR: 75 (Black), 73 (Blue), 72 (White).
DESIGNER: Alex Russell (1928), Mike Clayton (2008).
CORPORATE DAYS?: Functions can be tailored to suit.
MEMBERSHIP OPEN?: Yes, several categories available.
GREEN FEE: Private course. On application for interstate visitors.
ADDRESS: North Beach Rd, Karrinyup, WA, 6018.
PHONE: (08) 9447 5777.
WEB: www.lkcc.com.au
GETTING THERE: Take the Mitchell Freeway north from Perth city and take the Reid Highway exit. Turn left onto Reid Highway and then take the first left (Duffy Rd), before turning right into North Beach Rd. Course entry is next turn left.

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