Holiday at Home: South of the Swan

When you have been sitting on a plane for two hours, the first movie has been watched, you’re into your second in-flight snack and the flight tracker map shows you’re not quite halfway, there is a realisation Perth is a long way away.

But the travel across two time zones from the eastern states, let me assure you, is well worth it if your golf clubs are in the cargo hold.

As is the case with all of Australia’s capital cities, there is terrific golf to be found within a short drive after leaving the airport terminal. In Perth, that means scouting the suburbs south of the Swan River, where you will find a great mix of acclaimed private member’s clubs and high-quality publicly accessible layouts.

Less than 20 minutes after pulling out of the airport car park, I was driving through the gate at Collier Park golf course – a 27-hole public access complex boasting great practice facilities as well as a world-class landscaped mini golf course.

Collier Park has three loops of nine holes – the Pines, Island and Lake Courses.

The Pines layout, created by Peter Thomson and Mike Wolveridge in the mid-80s, is carved from an old pine plantation and the loop’s namesake feature line every hole.

For mine, the Lake and Island combination is the most interesting and fun layout to play.

Royal Fremantle Golf Club. PHOTO: Brendan James.

While the par-35 Lake Course, designed by Michael Coate, is the shortest of the nines, it is far from the easiest. It has a links style about it, with wide rolling fairways, punctuated by strategic bunkering en route to large, dramatic green complexes. The loop is named after its most memorable offering, the par-3 5th hole, where the tee shot must carry all the way across a lake to reach the safety of the putting surface.

The par-36 Island Course, designed by successful former touring pro Terry Gale, is the most recent addition and derives its name from the island that lies within the huge lake that borders the 1st, 3rd and 4th holes. The long par-4 3rd is the only bunkerless hole on the Island nine but the challenge here is to keep your ball out of the lake that looms down the left edge of the fairway and abuts the fringe of the green.

Perth is home to two private member ‘Royal’ courses – Royal Perth Golf Club and Royal Fremantle Golf Club – but limited tee times are available to interstate visitors who book in advance.

The Royal Perth layout – just 10 minutes’ drive east of Collier Park and a pitch shot from the banks of the Swan River – dates back to 1929 in its current form. But the club recently commissioned design firms Clayton, DeVries & Pont (CDP) and Kruse Golf (KG) to author a long-term plan for the course.

Sitting on little more than 80 acres, Royal Perth is reasonably short by modern standards and the designers will be looking to make a very good course even better through interesting design.

Gosnells Golf Club. PHOTO: Brendan James.

“The design collaboration of our two firms will bring an amazing depth of experience and knowledge to the process at Royal Perth,” Harley Kruse said. “It is an exciting prospect and we look forward to working with this historic club for improving the golf on its sand-based golfing land.

“It is tight by modern standards so every centimetre will count as we plan and work from boundary to boundary. Royal Perth can be a great example of how well-designed golf does not necessarily need to be bigger to be better.”

If you want to experience some of the best bentgrass greens and kikuyu fairways in Western Australia, you have to play Royal Fremantle.

Established in 1905, the original nine holes were laid out by founding member Arthur Oliphant and Peter Anderson, the 1893 British Amateur Champion who just happened to be working as the headmaster at Scotch College in nearby Claremont at the time. By the end of 1909, Fremantle became the first 18-hole course in Western Australia.

Today, Royal Fremantle is one of the oldest courses in the country that still remains on its original site. And, with that, come the pressures of a city growing up around your boundaries. The layout, at 6,168 metres, is not long in comparison with modern creations and will never stretch too much beyond that. But what it lacks in serious length, it more than makes up for in challenging your shot-making ability. And those playing surfaces … very nice.

One of Perth’s most underrated courses lies in the heart of the city’s southern suburbs.

Gosnells Golf Club, at Canning Vale, plays much like a Sandbelt course with plenty of bunkering, undulating terrain and interesting green complexes.

Graham Marsh played much of his early golf at Gosnells and even won a handicap championship here as a teenager. Of course, he went on to become one of Australia’s best professionals in the 1970s and 80s winning more than 70 tournaments around the world.

He returned to the course in the mid-1990s, not to play but to redesign the layout as part of a course masterplan following the renovation of the clubhouse.

It is easy to draw comparisons with the Sandbelt here. The course generally plays firm and fast, the bunkering is plentiful, the putting surfaces roll wonderfully smooth and the lies well into the rough can be on sparse sandy ground beneath the trees. And, most importantly, the design asks plenty of questions of your game from tee-to-green.

Hartfield Golf Club. PHOTO: Brendan James.

The first question comes with the opening tee shot where you survey the hole ahead and note the sea of sand cutting the fairway in two and more bunkers guarding the green at the end of the 280-metre par-4. The longest bombers can certainly attack the green by hitting driver, but the rest of us are probably best served by hitting short of the scheme of bunkers and leaving a short pitch into the green.

There are plenty of highlights throughout the round at Gosnells, with a great mix of long and short par-3s and par-4s ensuring you will need to use every club in the bag. For mine, the round also ends on a high with the par-5 18th providing a challenging test. The 505-metre hole is a genuine three-shotter for most players as the fairway gently rises from the tee, squeezes between staggered fairway bunkers left and right before gradually turning right over the crest of a hill. A pond lies short right of the elevated two-tiered green, adding two closing questions for the round: “Where do I lay-up and what club should I use?”

Gosnells is a private golf course but public access is available on Mondays.

It is easier to access Hartfield Country Club, some 20 minutes’ drive from Gosnells Golf Club on Perth’s eastern outskirts in the foothills of the Darling Range, with public tee times available five days a week.

Laid out across gently rolling terrain in a bushland setting, Hartfield, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, is a picturesque layout with several holes played against a backdrop provided by the range in the distance.

It’s a challenging excursion across the 6,175 metres (from the tips) with narrow fairways weaving between heavily tree-lined rough and some fairway bunkers. The tight playing lines place a real premium on accurate ball-striking from tee-to-green, which has made it an ideal venue for state and national amateur championships in recent years.

The Springs Club. PHOTO: Brendan James.

There is great variety in the holes at Hartfield, which certainly adds to the enjoyment of a round here. I particularly liked the sequence of four holes through the middle of the round, starting at the par-5 9th.

The 464-metre front nine closer certainly tempts those players with enough length in their shots to go for the green in two blows. The key to reaching the angled green and having a putt for eagle is avoiding the eight bunkers that are scattered short and alongside the putting surface.

A superb dogleg right short par-4 opens the back nine and, a drive into the fairway around the corner, will offer a straight forward short iron approach into the big green protected by two bunkers right.

If you happen to make a birdie on the 10th, there is every chance you will hand that gained shot back at the next – a slightly uphill and tight 400-metre par-4. Most players will have to hit a solid long iron, hybrid or even a 3-wood into the green that lies just beyond three bunkers. It is one of the toughest approach shots you will face at Hartfield.

The shortest and most interesting of Hartfield’s par-3s follows. The green complex of the 145-metre 12th is a highlight with expansive bunkers short, right and left of a sloping, leg of ham-shaped putting surface. What a gem!

If you feel inclined to take a closer look at the beauty of the Darling Range, you can take your clubs into the hills too.

Araluen Estate, about 30 minutes’ drive south of Hartfield, can be found in the Roleystone hills near Armadale. Perched high on a plateau, there are several holes offering players magnificent views over the nearby ‘Enchanted Valley’ and the surrounding hills.

Links Kennedy Bay. PHOTO: Brendan James.

This sometimes dramatically undulating landscape gave designers Michael Coate and the late Roger Mackay the opportunity to create some memorable holes. In fact, when they created the layout in the early ‘90s, they laid out Araluen’s most dramatic hole first.

The 165-metre par-3 16th virtually designed itself. Played from a tee some 60 metres above the green and with a picturesque pond just short of the putting surface, the 16th could only be played downhill. With this in mind, Coate and Mackay began their design here, tracked two holes up the enchanted valley back to the site of the clubhouse and then routed their course from there.

Venturing out of the hills and back into suburbia, there is a nine-hole course I recommend you take the time to discover.

It is The Springs Club, which was formerly known as the Armadale Golf Course. Up until six years ago, it was a forgettable layout with dead flat fairways leading to uninspiring pancake greens.

Former Joondalup and Paradise Palms course superintendent turned turf consultant and course designer, Jeff Lane, was commissioned to come up with a redesign plan back in 2016 and what a transformation he made. He managed to turn an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan.

Meadow Springs Golf and Country Club. PHOTO: Brendan James.

Laid out on a deep sandy base, Lane’s vision was to excavate a series of wetlands and with that sand he would create movement in the fairways. He called upon former long-time Meadow Springs course superintendent Greg Simmons to shape the landscape and within a few months the ‘swan’ was starting to blossom.

This is not a long course at 2,707 metres from the back markers. There are only five bunkers to be found on the layout – two on the 1st and 5th holes, and a lone greenside trap on the 6th. So, the main defence of par here is built into the large dramatic green complexes, which are covered in beautifully maintained bentgrass.

Ridges, tiers, dishes, steep drop-offs and hollows can be found across the nine green complexes, all of which dictate the best possible playing line from back down the fairway. If you are out of position for your approach, you will need to hit a really good shot to get your ball close … or even on the green.

There are some unforgettable holes, with great fun greens to be experienced at The Springs. The shortest of the three par-3s is the 145-metre 7th, which plays to a wild, narrow putting surface that is so deep it is easily five clubs longer from the front to the back edge of the green. In between, there are bumps and hollows reminiscent of the famed Himalayas putting green at St. Andrews.

Perhaps the most impressive attribute of the redesign is the course is more than playable for casual, beginner or high handicap golfers, while better players will love the strategy of trying to get their shots close without taking dead aim at the hole.

The Springs is outstanding and, perhaps, it would have been more apt had the name been changed to The Fun Club.

THE GOLF COAST

The 45-kilometre stretch of West Australian coastline – from Port Kennedy in the north to the Peel Estuary in the south – is often referred to as the Golf Coast as it is home to four highly-rated courses, two of which are currently ranked in Australia’s Top-100.

Links Kennedy Bay has been a mainstay for visiting golfers to the region for more than two decades and in 2020 was ranked No.33 in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 Courses biennial list.

It wasn’t ranked this year as it is currently undergoing a multi-million-dollar transformation after the closure of the original back nine to become part of a new residential development.

The course and a new state-of-the-art clubhouse are the jewel in the crown for Place Development Australia and its 10-year, $425 million project to develop the area into a village and community hub, which will also include 1,000 new homes, beach, jetty and a nature playground.

Graham Marsh was commissioned to come up with a masterplan incorporating nine new holes, a redesign of the original 5th through to the 9th hole and the first half of the opening hole. The second half of the original 1st hole and the 2nd through 4th holes will remain unchanged.

Meadow Springs Golf and Country Club. PHOTO: Brendan James.

Four holes of the Marsh redesign have already been constructed and are now in play as part of a nine-hole layout, and work continues on the second nine holes, which is due to open later in 2023.

According to Marsh’s concept masterplan, the new Links Kennedy Bay will stretch to 6,775 metres from the tips, making it one of the longest courses in the country.

When complete it will become the second Marsh design on the Golf Coast.

Less than 10 minutes’ drive south of Kennedy Bay is the Marsh-designed Secret Harbour Golf Links.

Laid out over large sand dunes and winding between thick coastal scrub, Secret Harbour is the centrepiece of an enormous residential golf community development that had its start back in 1999.

Just a drive and pitch from the Indian Ocean, it is a rare day that Secret Harbour does not feature some wind to complicate what would normally be straight-forward shots.

Arguably the best holes at Secret Harbour can be found on the outward half, which Marsh once claimed to be the best nine holes he had ever designed.

The undulating dunescape of the front nine makes way for gentler rolling holes on the back nine. Accuracy must be at a premium on the homeward trek because of the strategic bunkering Marsh has incorporated into his design. There is a combination of deep pot bunkers and sprawling Melbourne Sandbelt-style hazards excavated out of the sandy base at regular intervals between the 10th and 18th holes.

Heading further south on the Golf Coast, you will find the immaculately presented Meadow Springs Golf & Country Club, which was ranked No.57 in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 Courses earlier this year.

Designed by American Robert Trent Jones Jnr, Meadow Springs opened for play in 1993 and over the years it has matured into one of the best presented and enjoyable courses in Western Australia.

It is a fabulous design and routing but the lasting impression Meadow Springs leaves on all golfers is its conditioning, with the immaculate couch fairways and bentgrass greens setting a standard of conditioning many private clubs with huge maintenance budgets would look upon with envy.

The Cut Golf Course. PHOTO: Brendan James.

The quality playing surfaces fully complement the Jones’ design. The American has a reputation for working with the natural beauty of a site and it was no different at Meadow Springs. His finished product weaves between towering Tuart trees, four blue lakes and more than 70 bunkers. He is certainly not afraid to intimidate the golfer with a sea of sand or make a player second-guess their shot with a strategically placed pot or wasteland style bunker.

The massive Tuart trees, which are native to this coastal region, are a real feature of the Meadow Springs layout with some dating back more than 200 years. Some of the biggest of these trees line the four closing holes. This quartet, starting with the par-5 15th, offers a great finish where birdies are as common as bogeys and double bogeys.

My favourite of the closing foursome is the 354-metre par-4 17th, where longer hitters must hug the left half of the fairway to avoid a staggered line of bunkers lying diagonally from right-to-left beside the driving zone. With a fairway that slopes gently from left-to-right, toward the bunkers, an accurate tee shot is needed to stay out of the sand. If successful, you will be left with a mid-iron to a large elevated green where three-putts are common.

One of the most dramatic playing experiences on the Golf Coast is at The Cut golf course.

Laid out on and around sand dunes just south of the inlet to the picturesque Peel Estuary, The Cut was designed by James Wilcher and opened for play in 2005. It has been ranked in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 Courses in Australia ever since.

Wilcher’s design is impressive and covers two contrasting landscapes. The opening hole leads straight from the clubhouse to the ocean and the following three holes run parallel to the beach across gently rolling land. The 2nd and 3rd holes are terrific short par-4s where a narrow strip of dense native scrub to the left is all that separates the fairway from the beach.

The most memorable holes at The Cut are on the back nine, away from the residential development that overlooks the 5th through to the 9th hole. The inward half is far more undulating than the front nine with each hole bordered by thick walls of native shrubs while high dunes play a significant role on some holes. A combination of rough, natural bunkering and manicured traps can be found between tee and green on every hole.

Undoubtedly the highlight of the course is the 400-metre par-4 12th. The tee is perched high above the beach, offering panoramic ocean views and a sighter of the green, parked on another high dune off in the distance. The fairway drops quickly from the tee, cutting through some rugged sand dunes before reaching the corner of the dogleg and the flat driving zone. The fairway turns right and heads uphill, past sandy wasteland and mounding to the right, to the putting surface. This hole offers loads of the “wow” factor and is worth the price of the green fee alone.

WHERE TO PLAY