st michaels golf CLUB

ONE OF SYDNEY’S MOST POPULAR SEASIDE COURSES IS DELVING INTO ITS PAST TO IMPROVE ITS FUTURE. OUT OF PLACE TREES HAVE BEEN REMOVED TO MAKE PLAY FAIRER, WHILE PLANS ARE BEING DRAWN UP TO MAKE THE LAYOUT’S GREENS EVEN BETTER THAN THOSE IN PLAY TODAY. WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY: BRENDAN JAMES

A golf course by its very nature evolves. It is a growing thing. But there comes a time when that growth must be stemmed. Arguably one of the biggest problems courses built in the pre-war era face today is the originally poor placement of tree plantings that have since been allowed to grow and encroach on the playing lines of many of its holes.

One Sydney course where this was particularly evident was St Michael’s Golf Club – the next door neighbour of the world famous NSW course and set on similar rolling land overlooking the Pacific Ocean – located less than 25 minutes’ drive south of the CBD.

A small group of golfers, known as the Niblic Club, formed a public company in 1937 so they could take over the leasehold on the land to build a golf course. Michael Moran, who held the lease, signed over the land and then supervised the construction of the
first nine holes. Acres of thick seaside scrub and tea tree were cleared to reveal a links-style landscape.

The rolling terrain of the par-4 14th is a perfect example of the superb golfing land St Michael's occupies.

When Moran retired in 1938, club member and official starter Charles Cole oversaw the construction of the second nine. The club lost use of the course between 1942 and 1946 when the army took over the St Michael’s and NSW courses. In the four decades that followed, St Michael’s evolved with the odd tree planted here and there, new tees built and some greens changed.

But the growth and placement – detached from the natural bush lining many holes – of some of the tree plantings had, over time, created an unfair aspect on a selection of holes. For example, the short par-4 2nd doglegs right and over the crest of a hill before descending to the green. The long hitter could attack the hole by cutting the dogleg with a drive over thick bushland to the fairway, or even the green. But a small clump of trees between the edge of the fairway and the bushland had grown so large that many players who took on the hole would hit these trees and drop down into the rough or, worse still, ricochet into the bushland.

“Those trees robbed the hole of its risk-and-reward strategy,” St Michael’s course superintendent Darren Jones told Golf Australia.

“The golfer who was brave enough to hit a good shot over the bushland was being penalised by a blind hazard.”

Those trees have since been removed as part of a tree reduction program implemented by Jones, who received the Australian Golf Course Superintendents Association’s award for golf course management in 2005.

Such a move would delight the likes of famous architect Harry S. Colt, who designed the remarkable Royal Portrush in Ireland.
Colt once wrote that the “presence of trees on golf courses created too many inequities for the players” and “a tree is fluky and an obnoxious form of a hazard … with its primary function to distinguish between those players who had good or bad fortune.”

Jones said several clusters of trees had either been removed or had been identified for removal because they were deemed to be inappropriate for the style of course that exists at St Michael’s.

“Over the years, parkland-style planting of trees had been mixed in with the linksland setting that we have here,” he said. “From what we have done so far in regards to tree removal, we have moved St Michael’s closer to the coastal links course it was originally designed to be.

“Good shots need to be rewarded and St Michael’s can do without unfair blind obstacles.

” The tree removal program is just part of a masterplan that will see the completion of work on several tees as well as the redesign of all 18 greens.

It must be said the greens at St Michael’s are some of the best, in terms of speed and conditioning, to be found in Sydney year round, which is undoubtedly one reason behind the course’s popularity.

But Jones believes they can be even better. “We have been given the go-ahead by the club to present a masterplan of how the holes will play as well as a detailed look at the green structures,” Jones said. “Changes that have been made to the course in recent years have probably moved the course away from its original design.

The Par-3 12th is arguably the best of the short holes on offer at St Michael's.

“One aspect to be looked at is that when one green is five years old and another is 30 years old then the agronomy gets all messed up and the greens play differently. By rebuilding every green, we will bring them into line with each other.

“We want every hole here to be challenging and a redesign will give the course greater consistency in this regard and will be more in line with what a coastal links course is all about.

“We will be using aerial photography taken of the course during the ’50s and ’60s in our planning and we will be looking to go back to some of those original styles present on the course.”

In the meantime, St Michael’s continues to emerge as one of Sydney’s best layouts. As mentioned earlier, the key to its success in recent years has been its high standard of presentation.

While playing a round there with PGA Tour pro Nathan Green in 2005, he commented to this writer that the putting surfaces were the equal of many courses he had experienced on Tour here or overseas.

“The speed and true roll of the greens is fantastic,” Green, who now ranks as the third best putter on the US Tour, said. “I’d like to putt on these all the time.

” In compiling this course review recently, it was readily apparent that outstanding quality of the greens was one aspect of St Michael’s that time has not changed.

The dogleg par-4 2nd has become a very good risk-and-reward hole with the removal of trees right of the fairway.

FACT FILE LENGTH: 6,266 metres (championship markers), 5,876 (mens), 5,456 (ladies). PAR: 72. ACR/ACWR: 73 (c’ship), 71 (mens), 74 (ladies). DESIGNERS: Michael Moran, Charles Cole and various. CORPORATE DAYS: Functions co-ordinator is available to assist with all arrangements for groups from 12 to 200. MEMBERSHIP OPEN?: Yes. All categories including full, midweek and corporate. GREEN FEE: $77. $45 (member’s guest). ADDRESS: Jennifer St, Little Bay. PHONE: (02) 9311 0068. WEB: www.stmichaelsgolf.com.au GETTING THERE: Take the Eastern Distributor freeway out of the city towards the airport. Take the domestic airport exit, and turn left towards La Perouse, following Foreshore Drive to a T-intersection. Turn right, then first left. At the final roundabout, turn right and follow the signs into St Michael’s.

From the September Issue of Golf Australia