The polish was still yet to dry on Peter Thomson’s fifth Open Championship Claret Jug when he decided to venture more into the world of golf course design.
The year was 1965 and, together with fellow touring professional and friend Mike Wolveridge, he joined forces with noted English course architect Commander John Harris, who remodelled or designed 250 courses in 20 countries before his death in 1977.
Harris did most of his work in Europe and the West Indies, but Thomson and Wolveridge expanded the business into south east Asia, Japan and Australia with great success.
In Australia, there was a period from the early ‘80s through to the mid 1990s when Thomson and Wolveridge seemingly won most course design contracts for new projects and major rebuilds.
So, it was of little surprise back in 1981 – when one of this country’s biggest residential developers, AV Jennings, announced plans to create Australia’s first purpose-built integrated golf course and housing development – that Thomson and Wolveridge would be involved.
The greater surprise was the location of the massive project – a sloped area, steep in parts, of heavy bushland high above Tura Beach, about six kilometres north of Merimbula on New South Wales’ far south coast, about 350km from Sydney. Work on the course began that year and the first nine holes opened for play in June 1982, with Thomson putting on a ball-striking masterclass for the official opening crowd that followed him around for nine holes. The second nine opened for play in February 1984.
“In selecting Tura Beach for the site of a golf course, AVJennings has made a unique combination of the old and the new,” Thomson would later write in a story about the making of Tura Beach.
“Part of the course bears a striking resemblance to the great classical seaside courses of Britain, while other parts of the course take in the almost unbelievable beauty of the Australian forest area.
“The end resemblance is something quite special … The first nine holes take us down to the beach, where the great blue Pacific rolls with a roar and spray. Here we can take in its breathtaking views before tackling the rest of the course as it rises steadily from the marshland back to the starting point.
“The second nine holes take on a tour of the tall forest, with its sound of birds and scent of eucalyptus. These nine holes will remind world travellers of great inland venues of the U.S.A, such as Pinehurst and Augusta National.
“Altogether the whole course is likened to a world tour of golf. The challenge is surmountable, the beauty outstanding, the reward satisfying. To play golf at Tura Beach is for golfers a memorable experience.”
The great Mr Five Times liked Shakespeare and wasn’t afraid to add lashings of mayo to a perfectly good sandwich. In other words, Tura Beach is a terrific golf course, as Thommo said, but don’t expect to turn up and find a best of Pinehurst, Augusta, and Royal Liverpool layout as you will be sadly disappointed. That place doesn’t exist.
What you will find is a challenging but fair layout offering an incredible variety of holes, which require you to play a host of shots, with nearly every club in the bag, from a range of different lies. All that makes for interesting and fun golf, which is a tip of the hat back to the quality of Thomson and Wolveridge’s design skills.
The opening hole leads you away from the impressive clubhouse, ideally perched to offer a panoramic view over the course and beyond to the ocean. From the 1st green, the journey heads east towards the beach and, what have always been, my favourite holes on the course.
Tura Beach is a par-73 layout and boasts six par-5s, three of which can be found in the first third of the round. The 467-metre 2nd hole is arguably the most interesting of the lot based on the questions the design raises on the tee and from the fairway. Taking a driver from the tee may not always be the right option, depending on the wind and course conditions of the day, as the fairway narrows and weaves right around two fairway bunkers in the left rough. The fairway then slopes downhill with a slight left-to-right camber towards a tree and scrub-lined water hazard. The creek is the overwhelming feature here as it runs the length of the hole and wraps around the back of the green, forming a peninsula and adding a significant layer of risk to any approach shot. It is a quirky feature, but I like it because the temptation to go for the green in two shots here is very real and, with the hazard being so close to the putting surface, you could just blaze away without any concerns whatsoever. Instead, the quality of your approach needs to be first class.
The following hole, a par-3 of 181 metres from the tips, continues the trek towards the beach. Any kind of onshore breeze lengthens the tee shot here. A large U-shaped bunker short and right of the green almost dictates that a left-to-right ball flight aimed at the left edge of the putting surface is a good ploy. Two more bunkers – one left and another long –catch bad mishits and save those shots from a much harsher fate in the surrounding scrub.
The 474-metre par-5 4th hole turns towards the south, with a thick barrier of scrub and a narrow strip of light, sandy rough separating the edge of the slight dogleg left fairway. From the middle of the fairway, you can’t see the ocean, but you can hear it and smell it, and the sandy lie you will find if you miss the fairway here leaves no doubt the beach is a pitch away. A large round fairway bunker, about 40 metres short of the green, complicates the layup here and it really comes into play when the wind is strong from the south as there is very little room on the fairway left and right of the sandy hazard.
“Tura Beach is probably in the best shape I have seen it in the past decade.” – Top-100 ranking judge, Nathan Burgess.
The lake that borders the right of the 4th hole really comes into play at the next – a 181-metre par-3 played across the edge of the hazard to a bunkerless green. A new tee, to the right of the established tees, has recently been added to create a full water carry between tee and green.
The third par-5 of the round – the 470-metre 6th hole – leads you away from the beach and back into areas where tall eucalypts lining the fairways are more common.
Such is the unusual nature of Thomson and Wolveridge’s Tura Beach routing, you will only encounter three par-4s before reaching the 10th tee. Then you will play the hardest of the lot – an uphill, dogleg left excursion of 361 metres to the highest point on the course with out-of-bounds left and thick scrub downhill to the right. Two good hits is no guarantee of par or better here on arguably the toughest two-shotter on the NSW south coast.
Tura Beach’s inward nine covers far more dramatic terrain than the outward nine, giving rise to a greater number of uphill, downhill and sidehill shots on the back half. Holes like the par-5 11th and the short par-4 12th are terraced into the side of a hill, while the 15th, 16th and 17th holes – found on a separate paddock from the rest of the course – play straight up and down the same hill.
But Thomson and Wolveridge left one of their best until last. The par-5 (yes, another one) 18th is just 425 metres from the championship plates but appears to play a little longer, with the final shot of the round played to an elevated green with two cavernous bunkers cut into the upslope in front. It is a hole where bogies and birdies are as common as pars, and it presents a great opportunity to end your round on a high.
Tura Beach has changed very little over the years, with the most significant work in recent times being the extensive upgrade of the course’s original irrigation system, which will further improve the turf quality right across layout.
Course superintendent Brad Foster and his team have done a great job in raising the bar of presentation in recent years and this did not go unnoticed by this magazine’s ranking judges leading Tura Beach to climb to its highest ever ranking at No.83 in Australia’s Top-100 Public Access Courses list.
“Tura Beach was a mystery to me until early 2022 when I went on a golf road trip from Melbourne to Sydney,” said Top-100 judge Sam Brooking. “The designers did a great job considering the layout is spread across the side of a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The landscape has some memorable, sweeping holes that cling to the side of the hill with few better than the rollercoaster ride between tee and green on the par-5 18th.”
Fellow judge Nathan Burgess added: “Tura Beach is probably in the best shape I have seen it in the past decade.”
I completely agree. Even when I visited, in the middle of winter, for this story the playing surfaces were very good. The rough had, as expected, browned off but the fairways were excellent and the greens firm and rolling at a good speed.
FACT FILE
LOCATION: The Fairway, Tura Beach, NSW
CONTACT: (02) 6495 9002
WEBSITE: www.turabeachcountryclub.com.au
DESIGNERS: Peter Thomson and Mike Wolveridge (1982).
PLAYING SURFACES: Penncross bentgrass (greens), kikuyu (fairways), Santa Ana couch (tees).
COURSE SUPERINTENDENT: Brad Foster.
PGA PROFESSIONAL: Loraine Lambert.
GREEN FEES: $55 (18 holes). $165 (one-week, unlimited golf including social membership); $220 (two weeks, unlimited golf including social membership).
MEMBERSHIP: Tura Beach offers a wide range of membership options to suit all budgets and needs. Visit the club’s website to view details or download an application form.
ACCOLADES: Ranked No.83 in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 Public Access Courses for 2023.
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