Feature Story: NSW Mid-North Coast storms back

It was the garbage bins flying past the pro shop that made Brandon Connor think that the weather forecast of “windy” did not adequately reflect what was barrelling over South West Rocks on the NSW Mid North Coast. Indeed, a more apt description of the “event” that so whacked the region might have been “Severe Tropical Cyclone”.

Indeed, that is what they called it. They even named it: “Alfred”.

Looking out from the shop, Connor saw mature eucalypts wobbling. A basket of mandarins that a friendly local had left out for fellow members was flung across the course. Days later mandarins would turn up hundreds of metres away. When the double-brick pro shop began shaking, Connor wondered if it was time to get out of there.

Then the wind slowed down! Huzzah. And Connor took the chance to get home. He shut the shop, closed the course, and took on the 60-minute drive to his home in Sawtell.

The weather got worse – Alfred was coming. And it smashed South West Rocks.

There were 96km/h winds. Nearly 60mm of rain was dumped on the course – a month’s worth in 24 hours. Those wobbling trees, some up to 200 years old, were uprooted and strewn across the course.

“The next day I couldn’t get back into it,” Connor says. “It was completely flooded. Trees uprooted. On the sixth hole, nearly all the trees were ripped out. There were six massive gum trees, mature trees, uprooted. One landed on the first tee-box. Another one smashed the pump station. The place was a proper wreck. You couldn’t recognise it as a golf course.”

The ninth hole at Macksville. PHOTO: Supplied.

Connor drove to his mother-in-law’s place with his family – and he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was snowing. “It was a weird day for weather,” Connor quips. “We took the kids and made big snowmen. A mate of mine couldn’t get off his property – completely snowed in. It was bizarre.”

Ten days later, there was golf on South West Rocks.

It’s a story typical of several courses up and down the NSW Mid-North coast, a region which stretches from Port Stephens and Nelson Bay, up to Woolgoolga just north of Coffs Harbour. They’ve known a storm a time or two hereabouts and know how to bounce back – even if “Extreme Tropical Cyclone” followed by snow was something of a turn-up.

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Without any power in the town, South West Rocks Country Club became a community hub, their generator allowing locals to charge phones, grab a coffee, keep friends abreast of local news. When the clean-up began, Connor says the club was “inundated” with members who wanted to help.

“Most people were pretty lucky as far as damage to their homes goes – a few people were affected heavily but overall it wasn’t too bad given how bad the weather was. And we had so many people offering come out and help. It was fantastic. It brought everyone in the membership base together,” Connor says.

Emerald Downs in Port Macquarie has vast subterranean kilometres of ag lines and drains. PHOTO: Supplied.

The 18 holes at South West Rocks CC is par-72 and has “many great scoring opportunities,” according to Connor. Particularly now that the cyclone has hastened their master plan which had called for the opening up of sight lines.

“After the storm and a heap of the trees got ripped out, they cleaned it up and the sixth is actually really nice. It’s a short par 4, risk-reward, surrounded by water. But good players could hit a long-iron at the green, take on the corner,” Connor says.

“The storm cleared away a lot of limbs that had been overhanging fairways. So, there’s a new opening now, you can see a path. It used to be a bit blind but now it’s really inviting. It’s another of the holes that can really turn into a feature hole once we redesign it and touch it up a bit.”

Ironically, a tree that survived is one that many wanted ripped out – the great thumping gum in the middle of ten. “It’s just too sturdy,” Connor laughs. “It’s not going anywhere!”

RIGHT: Some of Cyclone Alfred's turmoil. PHOTO: Supplied.

In the way of our sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, ragged mountain ranges, drought and flooding rains, two months after the cyclone, the club was “praying for rain,” according to Connor.

“It really dried out. We never actually slowed down – people were still playing golf. But it was dry enough, for sure. But since then we’ve been lucky – the last month or so we’ve had a good amount of rain at the right time, and it’s really greened up the course. And it looks great.”

More damage. PHOTO: Supplied.

Just a day before the cyclone, South West Rocks hosted the NSW Open qualifier, won by St Michaels’ amateur, Daley Loumanis. Connor reckons the couch fairways and bentgrass greens are today in similar condition. “It’s pretty close,” he says. “The greens have been more of a cut and a roll,
and they’re just as quick.”

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Emerald Downs in Port Macquarie is 50km south of South West Rocks but copped enough of the cyclone and floods that a pair of bridges were washed away. It didn’t phase Director Brendan Roods, who says “we rebuilt them, dropped in bigger concrete ones. All good.”

Roods, part of a three-man management team with father Ashley and brother Martin, says “we were able to get the course back in order pretty quick, even it if obviously took a bit of a toll on the till”.

“We’ve bounced back really well. The course at the moment, we’re pretty lucky all our grass on our greens is 328 couch [aka Bermuda], so they can sort of take a fair bit. They’re just a very hardy sort of grass. And our greens are elevated, and very large compared to other courses,” Roods says.

“We’ve laid God knows how many kilometres of drainage and Ag lines,” adds Roods. “The water rises quickly but disappears at the same rate. We had a lot of fairways turn into creeks and streams for a couple of days and then it just dissipates. We can get carts back on pretty quick.”

Emerald Downs. PHOTO: Supplied.

Emerald Downs is part of a housing estate and is built on flood-prone land, though the course acts more as a natural water course – particularly given the Roods family’s work under the surface.

“We’re nonstop running drain cleaners and making sure that all those drains and lines are all nice and clean. The drains, they’re a bit like big arteries – as soon as the water gets in them, it just sort of funnels out pretty quick,” Roods says.

Emerald Downs is a privately-owned golf course open to the public most days. There are competitions throughout the week. The course is flat with lots of wildlife – koalas, kangaroos. Locals are proud to report a pair of black swans in the second dam.

Roods says there isn’t a ‘signature’ hole, though he nominates the 18th, “a fairly long par-3 over water with not a hell of a lot of relief”.

“But it’s the greens are probably the highlight,” Roods says. “They’ve got a lot of twists and turns.”

Nambucca Heads Island Golf Club, in the charming fishing and holiday town of Nambucca Heads, occupies the entire 32 hectares of Stuart Island, accessible via causeway bridge over the Nambucca River. In the five years that Johnathon Zirkler has been General Manager, there have been five floods. The most recent one was a doozy.

In May of 2025, floodwaters reached record-breaking highs, surpassing records that had stood since 1950. Power was out, roads were closed, the government offered disaster relief payments. Local Mayor Gary Lee said, “The floodwaters around the area are something I’ve never seen in 50 years”.

“It’s catastrophic,” Lee told Sky News.

As the waters subsided, the silt on the course was 12 inches thick. There was mud everywhere. Only eight greens remained above water.

If the Nambucca River floods, the island golf course will get wet. but it bounces back as quickly. PHOTO: Supplied.

The community rallied. A Facebook post asking for help attracted dozens of members. The president of neighbouring Macksville GC, Brad Fortescue, owns earth moving company Fortade Group. “Brad and his team were able to come along and help us move a lot of the mud really quickly to get us back up and running quicker,” Zirkler says.

Following this “one in a hundred year” flood, people were back playing golf on the island three weeks later. On four holes, anyway. Within two months, the entire 18-hole route was in play. Outside a couple of little patches, it’s in tremendous condition, according to Zirkler.

“It’s hardened up really well. The fairways have sprung back to life. We’ve got Wintergreen Sports Couch up here; it’s a stadium style grass and it’s really good. We have 15 greens that are fantastic, and three with a couple of little areas where we need to get the right sort of chemicals into the ground to help sustain that grass growth,” Zirkler says.

Golfers need little convincing: the course just had its busiest January on record. “We can do about 27,000 rounds a year. In January, we did almost 4000. Every day, it was just phenomenal,” Zirkler says.

Even the tail end of Cyclone Alfred wrought havoc on Coffs Harbour GC. PHOTO: Supplied.

Zirkler, who had ten years at Toowomba Golf Club – eight as a professional, two as General Manager – says NHIGC is a “fantastic little country course”.

“It’s tight – you’ve got to be be accurate off the tee. But more so you have to be putting yourself in the right place on the greens to be able to score,” Zirkler says.

Notable holes on the course include the first, which has the Nambucca River running down the left edge of the fairway. Zirkler also singles out the par-3 13th which heads towards the imposing Mount Yarrahapinni.

“And then there’s number 16, which is the longest par-4 on the course, which is dead straight, out of bounds left and water on the right,” Zirkler says.

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Macksville GC is a nine-hole course and has a management agreement in which Nambucca Heads Island Golf Club run the day-to-day operations so that the board can focus on strategic ideas.

Early in 2024, well before the great flood, the club received a grant to raise the greens and the tees around the bottom half of the
golf course.

South West Rocks remains tree-lined but, post-Alfred, sight lines have opened up on several holes. PHOTO: Supplied.

“So they barely got touched by the water, which was good,” Zirkler says. “And those tees were fine, too. The more traditional parts of the golf course probably suffered a little more with some springs coming through the soil that weren’t there previously.”

But it bounced back quickly, according to Zirkler, who says “the beauty of the layout is that, they can run a variation of nine holes”.

“When it first came back, we created a routing of a four-hole course. Then five holes, six holes. Then nine holes again. We were just trying to make sure we could get people around. We had carts on pretty much the entire time.”

Again, the volunteers came in droves, with a core group of five or six who put in 20 hours a week.

If Zirkler were describing the course to a travelling golfer, he’d talk about the openness of the routing, the “fantastic Tifdwarf greens” and the ease of access.

“Any day of the week, anytime, there’s accessibility. And I’d probably give a little plug to the kitchen there, too. In fact, both it and the Island’s kitchen, they’re probably the best places to eat in either town,” Zirkler says.

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Even before the great flood of May 2025, Bellingen GC had gone into voluntary administration. Too many days lost to rain, along with “significant poker machine payouts,” according to local television broadcaster, NBN, were among factors cited for costs outweighing income.

There came a white knight. Late in 2025, Zirkler, along with Bellingen’s board and chartered accountants and liquidators, Clout Advisory, approved the sale to a private consortium of local pub owners, Luke Sullivan and Matt Rabbidge, of the Mosey On Inn group. The pair’s pitch was to create a community space.

“And these guys, I just met with them, they’re so keen to promote the club as a community facility, even though they’re privately owned. Some of the stuff they’re doing is so good. It’s ridiculous what they’re doing,” Zirkler says.

One of those things is to rename the place the Loyal Bellingen Golf Club. They also employed the former head chef of Agrarian Kitchen, an award-winning eatery in New Norfolk, Tasmania.

“They reopened the golf course just before Christmas,” Zirkler says. “It’s a great little golf course. Nine holes, just at the foot of the Great Dividing Range. It’s been through a fair few floods in the past, which is why they ended up closing. They just ran out of cash. But it’s great little track, fun for everyone.”

Today the club is proudly “pokies-free”, open from Thursday to Sunday, and a family-friendly community hub. The golf course is open to visitors seven days a week.

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Coffs Harbour GC was set to host the Australian Ladies Classic in August of last year when Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred turned up on the NSW Mid North Coast. Though they only copped the tail of what so hammered South West Rocks, the damage was “pretty brutal and flooded the course,” according to club professional, Matt Allan. “The course was obliterated.”

Today it’s like Alfred never happened.

“We’re pretty good now,” Allan says. “The club has been great over the years. We’ve had a lot of good board members and directors who’ve put solid plans in place, with many of the funds reinvested back into the course.

RIGHT: The 9th green at Emerald Downs. PHOTO: Supplied.

“The drainage, cart paths and other infrastructure have really improved the place out of sight. It’s also helped protect it against those poor weather situations, which we get a lot of because of the Great Dividing Range and how close it is to the ocean here. It’s like a little bowl. When we get weather from a certain direction it just gets stuck here, so it can get extremely wet and cold.

“The club identified that and put a lot of time, effort, resources and capital into drainage and things like that. So, we were only really out of action, on and off, for about a week.”

Today it’s as good as he’s ever seen it, Allan says. “Matt Duff was employed as a greenkeeper here and Justin Sheehan before him. They’re both very good greenkeepers. They’ve been working up to improving the course.

“Matt has done an outstanding job. We’re starting to get couch everywhere now, basically. The fairways and roughs are all couch; Matt can do different step patterns in the rough and make it a bit more brutal. It just looks stunning.

“We’ve also rebuilt the 18th green, which was always a bit of an issue, and that’s come up a treat as well.”

Coffs Harbour is 27 holes with three nine-hole courses – The Lakes, East Lakes and West Lakes. These can be played in various 18-hole combinations. Asked to name his favourite hole, Allan risks member wrath.

“This might be contentious because people hate teeing off on them, but I think two of the starting holes now, 10 and 19, are just stunning,” Allan says.

“I think 10 [par-4 for men, par-5 for ladies] is one of the best golf holes anywhere in the world. You could put that hole anywhere, on any course in the world – it’s such a good-looking hole and a great hole to play.”

“And 19 was one of the hardest par threes you’d ever play. The old green was probably 50 years old and had an old drain across it. They rebuilt the entire green area and wrapped the lake around the back of it.

“There are multiple tee options now. The ladies play it as a par-4 and the men as
a par-3. It can play anywhere from about 180–190 metres for the men, right down to around 130m, and there are so many different pin placements.”

Go Mid-North

Ordered for a drive south to north, here are 13 courses to play on a NSW Mid-North Coast golfing safari.

Forster Tuncurry Golf Club

Strand St, Forster NSW

(02) 6554 6799

forstertuncurrygolf.com.au

Taree RSL and Golf Club

121 Wingham Road, Taree NSW

02 6539 4000

clubtaree.com.au/golf

Wauchope Country Club

24 King St, Wauchope NSW