Between celebrated classics and flashy resorts, the 1970s quietly shaped Australian golf. Mollymook’s Hilltop Course, born of that era, now rises anew, honouring its heritage while embracing bold, modern enhancements.
The 1970s was a transformative decade for golf course design and construction in this country. The architects of the Australian “Golden Age” had been resigned to history, while the golf course building boom of the 1980s and early 1990s was still to come.
And somewhere in between, you had the 1970s, which has often been overshadowed by the celebrated courses built in years gone by and the big-budget resort courses and golf real estate developments which followed.
The fact is, however, there were some superb courses created in Australia during the ’70s, with the Jack Nicklaus rebuild of The Australian Golf Club (1977) being arguably the most high-profile “new” course of the era.
Of the 40-odd courses founded during that decade, Mollymook Golf Club’s Hilltop Course is one of the finest and is regularly ranked in Australia’s Top-100 Courses, listed at No.69 in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 Public Access Courses rank in 2025. In the same year, Mollymook was voted Most Outstanding Club, Facility or Place To Play (Regional) in the Golf Australia National Awards of Excellence.
Mollymook’s Hilltop course was created by superintendent Bill Andriske and professional turned architect Ken McKay Sr, who was a prolific designer of courses across the NSW South Coast for many years.
Andriske was the long-time super of Mollymook’s nine-hole Beachside course. He was also the curator of the local rugby league ground where his beloved Milton Ulladulla Bulldogs played. Their home ground still carries his name.
The Beachside was Mollymook’s original layout, starting as a sand green course in the early 1950s and proved so successful, the club purchased the land, a pitch shot from Mollymook Beach. Andriske later oversaw the conversion of all the greens to bentgrass in 1979, but it was his work through the earlier years of the ’70s which left an indelible mark on the NSW South Coast golfing landscape.
It was during these years that Mollymook’s residential development started to take off. A land developer donated a parcel of land, a few kilometres north-west of the clubhouse, to the club for the construction of what is now known as the “Hilltop Course”.
The club enlisted Andriske to work alongside McKay to design the layout, which was carved from a thick eucalypt forest. The course opened for play in 1977, and it didn’t take long for the hillside creation to win plaudits. It would prove to be the one and only course the pairing produced together, and what a beauty it has been.
Both nines at Mollymook open from in front of the clubhouse, which occupies the highest point on the course and offers beautiful south-easterly views across the treetops to the Pacific Ocean in the distance.
Mollymook has bounced around on ranking lists for the past two decades, but in recent times, Hilltop has been on a gradual ascent, which can be attributed to the program of subtle course improvements the club undertook nearly a decade ago. Bunker renovations, selective tree removal and improvement of the kikuyu fairways and bentgrass greens, under the guidance of the Golf Management Committee and Programmed Turnpoint, have raised the bar.
Now, the plan is to raise that bar even higher, as the most significant changes are made to the course since McKay and Andriski’s original layout was finished.
The seeds of change were planted after the club completed an extensive renovation – including the introduction of pure bentgrass greens and Zoysia surrounds – of its nine-hole Beachside layout a few years ago. The club had previously long held plans to make major improvements to the Hilltop Course, but a lack of financial resources ensured these proposals never ventured beyond the “planning stages”.
In recent years, however, the club has become a powerhouse in the golf industry as one of the first clubs in the country to implement gender neutral competitions daily, and the first club on the NSW South Coast to become a signatory club of the R&A’s Women in Golf Charter. Mollymook also boasts a thriving junior program and is the home club of Jye Halls, the 2025 Australian Amateur Champion, and Kelsey Bennett, a Ladies European Tour top-25 player.
The club now boasts 1600 members, over 14,000 social members and attracts more than 122,000 visitors each year, making it one of the largest regional clubs in Australia.
With that weight of numbers, the decision was made in 2023 to take the Hilltop Course to the next level and commissioned course architect Ryan Van Der Veen to develop a new “hole-by-hole” enhancement masterplan, which would be implemented with changes to every hole made across a six-year renovation schedule to minimise any disruption to the membership.
The course enhancement plan includes all greens having the smooth-rolling Pure Distinction bentgrass, Zoysia surrounds, as well as Tiff Tuff couch tee areas and tee surrounds. Capillary bunker systems will be installed and each hole upgraded with new irrigation and drainage.
Work began in late 2024 and the first signs of the “new” Hilltop course are already evident.
Work commenced by building a new 19th green on the par-5 6th hole, which was split into two holes; a 172-metre par-3 and a 250-metre par 4. “It was important to build a championship extra hole, as it will be in play for the majority of time over the six years of the renovation,” Mollymook Hilltop and Golf Manager Barry West said.
The starting point for the enhancement was the par-5 13th, one of this writer’s favourite holes in Australia, but hamstrung from greater acclaim by a notoriously steep back-to-front sloping green.
The 13th plays a little shorter than the 500 metres listed on the scorecard. For longer hitters, it is a blind tee shot over the crest of a hill to a fairway which turns to the right from the top of the rise. Once you have cleared the hill, the remainder of your journey is laid out before you and there is a plethora of choices presented for your second shot.
Most players won’t be long enough to carry the stream separating the green from the end of the fairway, so the question is “where do I lay-up?” It has always been best practice to leave a full shot with a short iron so you can keep your approach beneath the hole. Any shot left above the hole, and you are faced with the likelihood of a three-putt heading down the slope.
“Every year, the PGA Legends Tour comes to town for the annual NSW Senior Masters Pro-Am and every year, we get several professionals volunteering their services to either design a new green or literally dig it up with their own hands,” West said.
“Immediately following the 2025 Legends Pro-Am, the excavators rolled in and started work on October 20 [2025] with a plan to totally rebuild the 13th green, 14th tees and 11th tee areas in stage 1A of the renovation.”
Van Der Veen has created a far more interesting putting surface, where longer hitters will be enticed to try to carry the stream short of the green without fear of facing an impossible first putt. A rugged-edged bunker cut into the upslope between the creek and the green adds more interest to any approach shot, as does a second bunker back left of the green.
Van der Veen agrees with the suggestion there’s a hint of Augusta National about the 13th; the way the fairway rolls up over the crest of a hill before turning right to descend to the green. Now, for the first time, the hole boasts Augusta-like strategy.
“It was funny because like starting on the 13th, they [the Course Renovation Committee] were a little bit nervous and I’m like, ‘This is an easy fix,’” Van Der Veen said. “There was between six and seven percent of slope on the green, which was a serious problem, but not a problem too big to fix.
“Now, if you end up long left, or say you want to go for the right pin, you have a semi-backstop there which will bring you right back down into the green. But if you go for the wide part of the green on the left, you could chase through into that bunker back left.”
The first renovations opened for play on March 1, just as work began on Stage 1B, which will see the 14th green and 15th tees upgraded, before moving onto another Mollymook favourite, the par-3 12th.
“This is kind of Mollymook’s version of Augusta’s Amen Corner and the renovation is coming right at the start of their project,” Van der Veen said. “Those three holes – 12, 13, and 14 – that’s probably the best area of property; it’s going to be the part where we can make Mollymook shine quickly and give a whole lot of members confidence of what is to come.”
When completed, the new 12th hole will see a new, much larger green positioned next to the adjoining lake and it will also wrap around another of Van Der Veen’s rustic-shaped bunkers. The left portion of the green will be separated by a small tier from the remainder of the putting surface, creating a spectacular pin position for championships and monthly medals, as well as another way to stick your tee shot close when the flag is on the lower right section.
“I looked at 12 and just an awesome canvas,” Van Der Veen said. “The traditional thing would just be to throw a green in there left-to-right and have some bunkering in the slope behind it. Maybe a bit in front, but I didn’t want to do the traditional thing; I thought we should do something a little bit more strategic.
“We enlarge the putting surface, and I have a massive part of the green, 35 to 40 metres deep, right next to the water, so that it almost seems like the easiest spot to hit, but it’s also the riskiest because it’s nearest the water.
“Then for the trickier part of the green, we putt away from the water. It’s a little bit bunkered. You might have a feed-in slope off the left for which you could get lucky and miss left and still roll down into that green. It’s something a little different.”
Different is good … and fun and memorable.
Further into the renovation, the par-3 9th hole – with a green so close to the clubhouse you can smell the beer being poured from the tap – will be moved to a safer location down the hill towards the current 18th green and there is a plan to create a huge green and bunker complexes for the two closing holes.
Again, it’s different, but far more memorable than the current offering.
I have played Mollymook numerous times during the past 40 years, and while I gladly return to experience this wonderful course, I have always felt it had greater potential given the beauty of the site. The new style of green complexes and bunkering across the layout will certainly set it apart from any other course on the NSW South Coast, perhaps across the entire state.
Improving its weaker holes and enhancing some old favourites is all part of the “new” Hilltop Course evolution – one which will undoubtedly see it climb much deeper into
the coveted Top-100 Courses ranking lists in future years.
FACT FILE
LOCATION: Clifford Cl, Mollymook
(Hilltop Course); Golf Ave, Mollymook (main clubhouse and Beachside Course).
CONTACT: (02) 4455 2055 (Hilltop Course); (02) 4455 1911 (main clubhouse).
WEBSITE: www.mollymookgolf.com.au
DESIGNERS: Ken McKay Sr, Bill Andriske (1977); Ryan Van Der Veen (ongoing).
MEMBERSHIPS: Mollymook has a waiting list for its full golf and weekday memberships, which offer access to both the Hilltop and Beachside Courses.
GREEN FEES: $89 (18 holes, visitor); $45 (member’s guest); $35 (reciprocal club).
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