Bonville Resort Golf Course Bonville Resort Golf Course Image: Brendan James,Golf Australia

And the natural space they’ll play through is truly spectacular. Bonville’s been repeatedly recognised as the most beautiful course in the nation, earning the title for best aesthetics in The Golf Course Guide on four occasions, and

the plaudits are well-deserved. Where the future of Australia’s (and the world’s) golf courses is to embrace brown for reasons of sustainability, Bonville will be ever-fertile thanks to the abundant rainfall the area receives. It’s evident with every waterway you cross on the drive here – this place isn’t called the Northern Rivers region for nothing.

The subtropical climate is famously mild, cited by the CSIRO as the most liveable in the country. The whole “mountains-meets-the-sea” element of the Coffs Coast lends Bonville an interesting kind of feel – part tree-lined, inland track of the southern states, part tropical north resort layout.The trees themselves are interesting; enough to catch the attention of the player steaming from having hit his ball into them. Standing narrow and upright, the flooded gums are distinctive when compared to the sprawling, thick-trunk eucalypts which golfers encounter on many other courses around the country. In the background of every shot the rows of trees are pleasing to look at. But as vertical as they are, they also give off the illusion of narrowness in that distant fairway or green, even if the player’s target area is generously wide.

In spring, the azaleas bloom – another touch of Augusta – along with other native flowers, completing the postcard-quality of Bonville. And in keeping with the words of one of the game’s true greats, Walter Hagen, every golfer is behoved to not hurry or worry, and must be sure to smell those flowers along the way.As a test of golf, Bonville is characterised by rolling elevation changes and water features across the layout that the player has to plot around. The bunkering isn’t stern, certainly by Australian standards, but redesign work on the sand traps continues to make them more of a factor. Free swingers will have their chance to blast away, and when players arrive at the 4th, the first par-5 of the round, they’ll see that each of Bonville’s long holes will tempt big hitters to go for the green in two.