Australia '07 New South Wales and Royal Melbourne

[Anthony Butler]

#16 par 4  Dogleg left that turns pretty hard. Overall there are more dogleg lefts here than rights but it doesn't seem to jump out at you. Perhaps a slicer of the ball would feel differently.
    The green is sited along a ridge of dune with the usual complement of flanking bunkers.
 
#17  for us was a fill in hole which was a replacement for #18 which was out of play as they were rebuilding it and the range. We played a wonderful little uphill short iron to a tiny green that sloped pretty hard from left to right, and with the pin up on the left was a pretty tough shot. You couldn't see any of the green from the tee, and the bush was just left of the green, not to mention it was all carry over a bush-filled depression. A great little hole that unfortunately is not part of the normal rotation.

Interestingly in Australia most of the courses we played had a fill in hole which allows them to work on another hole without having to use a temporary green which is pretty smart. However, it may be that just gives them an excuse to mess with their courses too much. I haven't seen enough to make an informed decision as to which it is.

#17 par 3 (our #18 for our round) is yet another in a long line of solid par 3's that we saw throughout our travels. The hole plays right along the top of a ridgeline, with a huge falloff down to the right onto #16 fairway, and a pretty good falloff on the left also. The ground rises just enough on the way to the green with the vegetation to obscure your view enough to induce uncertainty. This uncertainty makes it hard to commit to your shot, which is always a good thing in my book from an architectural standpoint. There is actually room to miss short, which is the bailout, but since you don't see it the first time around you just do your best. Besides with a mid-iron in hand it is hard to convince yourself to lay up. Fortunately there are some flanking bunkers near the front of the green that can save your miss from rolling far far away.

All in all a great course IMO and one I would certainly make it a point of playing again on a return trip even though that would mean leaving the Sandbelt. Easily a Doak 8 (One of the very best in the region and worth a special trip to see. Could have some drawbacks, but will make up for them with something really special.)

Ed thanks for your comments on my home club... it really is like no other golf course in the world. The combination of wind, water, sky and bush add up to golf 'in the wild' no matter how immaculate you find the turf and greens... I'm counting the days until I return in December.

NSW has 4 right to left dog legs and only 1 left to righter, but I'm not sure a slice is a bale out option off any tee except 4 and 8.

Anthony,
   I wasn't implying that slicers could bail out, I was making the point that slicers will find the dogleg lefts harder to negotiate, although there is a fair amount of width on the doglegs generally as you know. I don't generally slice the ball and the balance of doglegs turning right or left didn't jump out at me during the course of the round. It was only later looking at the routing that I noticed the 4:1 ratio.

Members with some confidence in their games often start a fade over the bushes on thirteen and let an easterly breeze carry it back onto the fairway. On 3 you can defintitely take on the tea trees with either 5 wood, 3 wood or driver depending on the wind. If you come off it or bale to the right with NE wind blowing (prevailing wind for approx. 8 months of the year) you will be left with 180 yd + uphill shot to a skyline green. If you have a screaming 2-3 iron that goes dead straight and never gets more than 40 feet in the air you should be able to reach the green.

On the other hand, the 14th in the same NE wind leaves you with an appproach shot from the valley fairway of 100-120yds to another skyline green straight downwind that must be perfectly judged and hit to stop anywhere near the green.

When comes from the other direction you're looking at a a easy 6 iron from 135yds that does get too far above the hill, otherwise it's more likely to land in the Pacific than on the green... Not sure how much variety everyone is looking for, but the weather conditions keep it interesting at practically every hole.

I would agree though that the par 5's need some improvement... the reason Ed was playing the spare hole is that they are completely reconfiguring the 18th so it is more challenging for every wind condition.

[ed_getka]

Royal Melbourne West

#3 par 4   An excellent little par 4 that plays around 340 yards. To look at a routing map you would think it is just a boring little short dogleg left, but you would be wrong. First there is the slightly rising ground in front of you off the tee that obscures your view just enough to make you uneasy. Then on the approach you have a green that moves away from you, but you can't simply run the ball in because the contour in front of the green doesn't want to let your ball go where you would like it to. Probably not a big deal for a pro, but absolutely brilliant defense against the average golfer. Most fallaway greens you just gauge how far short to hit the approach and then let gravity take over, here there is much more to it than that.

#4 par 5   A tee shot up over rising ground crowned by a big deep bunker complex. Once over that and in the fairway the green is certainly reachable in two on the 470yd. hole. Flanking bunkering guards the green which I believe tilted a bit from left to right.
   Anyone who has anything to add about this hole from the approach in, it would be greatly appreciated.

#5 par 3 One of the justly famous holes in golf. A green benched into the dune that backdrops this hole. The bunkerinng is seemingly all around the green with the opening in front looking inviting, but don't come up short or you will roll back a ways toward the tee. On the other hand there are worse things in life than having your ball above the hole, BUT NOT MANY.  
   The bunkering comes right into the edge of the green so your margin of error feels even smaller than it really is. All that is required is a well-struck 5 iron or so. Yet another great hole.

[ed_getka]

#6 par 4  A sharp dogleg right hole, that plays slightly downhill across some low-lying vegetation, before turning around some trees that keep you from simply trying to cut over toward the green. Also, it is a pretty good carry to get out to the fairway if you take the most aggressive line, which David Kelly did and was amply rewarded for. One of the great things about this course is that the high handicapper can scrape his ball around this course, not quite with a putter maybe, but there aren't many forced carries unless you are trying to get to position A like David did. You can simply bail out left and play the hole as a par 5 (which is what most people are going to make on this 428 yard beast of a hole).
    On the approach the shot is to a green built into the rising land behind and the predominant tilt if I remember correctly is back left down to front right. The members took great delight in telling the story of Ernie Els' folly of trying to get up and down out of the back left bunker to a pin that was straight down the fall line. Needless to say his ball didn't stay on the green. Those guys are good, but not THAT good.

#7 par 3 Uphill hole with no green in sight and just a flagstick up there beckoning in the breeze. Fortunately as first-timer you are blissfully unaware of the shallowness of the green and the numerous bunkers that make this green surface hard to attain. A well-struck fade, judging the wind properly,  should get the job done.

At this point in the round it occurs to me that the course is eminently playable with well-struck shots, but you are never far away from turning any hole here into a disaster.

[ed_getka]

#8 Par4 379yds
     Hole plays slightly uphill off the tee and is effectively a slight dogleg right. Bunkering guards both sides of the fairway, with the preferred left side of the fairway having more extensive bunkering.
   Note on the course website how easy it is for your tee shot to run into the fairway bunkering. There is no strip of rough to stop your running draw from finding the beach.
    The reason the left side is preferred for the approach is that the green runs away in its second half to the back left bunker. A solid hole, but one that I could see being replaced in the Composite course.

#9 Par4 416yds
     A stern 2-shotter, with a tee shot that is a little disconcerting because you are hitting over a slight riste in the fairway so you can't see the landing area (as I remember it). Then the hole proceeds to play uphill and as is the case with some of the holes here the green is set on a diagonal to the line of play. The deeper you have to get into this green the more daunting the approach becomes.

#10 Par4 305yds
      A hole that is quite deserving of its reputation. You can try to drive the green with the uphill tee shot over the huge bunker guarding the left side of the fairway, or play conservatively out to the right. The bunker down the left side doesn't spell certain ruin as evidenced by David Kelly's drive which just missed clearing the lip of the bunker. He simply got up and down for his birdie from there. A more impressive accomplishment than any words can describe. My ball was in postion A on the conservative line out to the right and I had about 40 yards in. The challenge from this position is negotiating the swale that brilliantly defends the front of the green. I thought I had judging the slope of the swale perfectly with my putter approach only to have the swale throw my ball about 25 feet away. A hole you could play over and over all day and never get bored.

[ed_getka]

#11 Par4 455yds
       Another stout par 4, this one from an elevated tee with lots of room to air a tee shot out on this long dogleg left.
    This hole had a few bunkers at the turn of the dogleg on the left that seemed VERY out of place. I would be very surprised if they were original to the course.
      The approach shot is slightly uphill to a green that is defended well by bunkering and sloping ground.

It occurs to me that one of the great aspects of RM West is that the green complexes are so interesting that you could put a golfer with a decent short game 50 yards out from every hole and they would still be challenged to break par. Other courses like this that come to mind are Prairie Dunes, Crystal Downs, Royal Dornoch, etc...

#12 Par5 476yds
      A gently sweeping dogleg L. Probably one of the less interesting holes here. There aren't any bad holes here IMO, and given the overall flow of the course, less interesting obviously works.
      Some rough ground short left of the green and a central bunker guard the approach of someone trying to get home in 2 shots pretty effectively it seems. Also, the green sits back into an amphitheater of vegetation which can give pause to a mortal golfer thinking of going for it in two.

#13 Par3 147yds
      A hole that appears quite daunting, but actually has a fairly generous green for the length of shot. The least interesting of the par 3's here. Apparently the back half of the green slopes away, but I didn't notice anything that jumped out at me as being an area to avoid at all costs.

#14 Par4 366yds
      Tee shot over rough ground on this dogleg right. Have to be careful not to drive through the dogleg on this hole. Although you do want to favor the left given the predominant tilt of the green from R to L. Plenty of internal contour here on this green. The last 70 yards of this hole are quite heavily bunkered, but I'm not sure how much of it is original or necessary. I would be curious to know if extra bunkers have been put in to keep long hitters at bay?

[ed_getka]

#15 Par5 467yds
     Straightaway hole that has 2 features that keep things interesting for any level of golfer. The fairway is broken up by a cross-hazard of rough-covered humps that give pause to the average golfer to try to get home in two. The green is steeply pitched in the front half making it difficult for long OR short iron approaches to get close to the pin. A hole that seems easy on paper but is anything but.

#16 Par3 221yds
      A daunting hole well-defended by the bunkering that sets the hole up on a diagonal calling for a well-judged R to L shot. Add the internal movement of the green and any par is well-earned here and birdies must be rare indeed.

#17 Par4 439yds
     Dogleg L with tee shot over rising ground that makes you uncomfortable on the tee. This is a feature that doesn't get used nearly enough by modern-day architects IMO. It is not a blind tee shot and you certainly know where you need to go, but not seeing all of the landing area seems like one of the great psychological ploys that is underutilized.
     The approach on this hole is complicated by the way the green rises up abruptly from the fairway. It is not uncommon to see the approach of the average golfer be shouldered away to the left. Most approaches will come in to the green such that they contact the defending slope at a diagonal. That coupled with your desire to avoid the deep bunkers right make this a green not easily attained.
    For a pro it is probably nothing more than drive and 9 iron, but a wonderful hole for the rest of us.

#18 Par4 433yds
      A solid finishing hole that requires a solid drive up over a wall of sand to leave a reasonable approach. Otherwise you can play out to the left, to ground that is sloping away to the left, and take the long way home. An aggressive line off the tee can make this seem like an easy finishing hole, but start to get too conservative and this hole will take you to task. A wonderful combination of risk/reward IMO.

Overall RMW is a wonderful place to enjoy a game of golf. I wouldn't be surprised if some golfers went around it once and wondered what the big deal is, a la TOC. I would have to see this course many more times with the proper maintenance meld to begin to sort out the subtleties of this fine course.
   I know there is a composite course and without knowing which holes it comprises I would think the holes that would be candidates for replacement at RMW would be #'s 1,3,8, 11-14. I will take a look later and see if I got any right.

[Matthew Delahunty]

Ed,

The holes on RMW which are also on the composite course are 1-7,10-12, 17 and 18.

Holes from RME are 1-4, 17 and 18.

[Jason Topp]

Ed:

After a couple of years reflection #16 stands out to me as one of the best of the great collection of one shot holes in Australia.  Do you agree?  I wonder why it does not get the notoriety of the others.

[Chris Kane]

Jason, 16 is off the main paddock and not on the Composite course.  Thats my best explanation as to why it doesn't get the notoriety it deserves.

[ed_getka]

Matthew,
   Thanks for the Composite info. I'm surprised #9 comes out of the rotation. Wow, taking #9, 15, and 16 out on the West. I'll need to see the East course next time to see how good some of those replacement holes are.

Jason,
    There were so many great par 3's in Australia that I don't think #16 would be my choice. Obviously it is subjective, but right off the top of my head I would go with #6 at NSW. Even at RMW I think I would go with #7 or #5. There was a fantastic par 3 in the middle of our round (out of sequence) at KH that would certainly be in the running. In fact, I can't think of a single course I played on my trip that didn't have at least one outstanding par 3. The par 3's I experienced on my trip are what left the biggest impression. So needless to say it is a tough call.
    What other holes would you put in the mix for best par 3's in Australia?

[Jason Topp]

Jason,
    There were so many great par 3's in Australia that I don't think #16 would be my choice. Obviously it is subjective, but right off the top of my head I would go with #6 at NSW. Even at RMW I think I would go with #7 or #5. There was a fantastic par 3 in the middle of our round (out of sequence) at KH that would certainly be in the running. In fact, I can't think of a single course I played on my trip that didn't have at least one outstanding par 3. The par 3's I experienced on my trip are what left the biggest impression. So needless to say it is a tough call.
    What other holes would you put in the mix for best par 3's in Australia?

Ed:

It is amazing to me how much better the par threes are in Australia than the American holes I have played.  I can think of so many contenders on the few courses I played:

RMW 5, 7, 16
NSW 6
Woodlands, 5, 17 and possibly some of the others
KH 10, 15

Even Barnbougle 7, 13 and possibly 7 at Newcastle (although the weather was so hot for me I just don't remember much else).

I would rank 16 at RMW as highly as any of those holes.

Interestingly, only the NSW hole and the Barnbougle hole are located on really unique pieces of land.

Perhaps 16 has a unique place in my memory because after I finished, I discovered that the gate back to the main paddock was locked.  I was playing alone and the gate was giant.  In retrospect, I should have recognized I was in GCA heaven (locked into Royal Melbourne West) and should have turned around and played the holes in that paddock until someone let me out.  Instead I performed a pretty acrobatic climb of the fence.  That thing was designed as a serious impediment to people sneaking on the course.