You Aussies Are Letting The Side Down

[Sean_A]

I read in Golf Architecture about what looks to be a stunning new golf course in NSW.  Yet I have heard no mention of Magenta Shores!  Its time to spill the beans and tell us what you know.

Ciao

[Andrew Summerell]

Sean,

It’s an hour & a half above Sydney, so probably only the Sydney-siders, Myself & Kevin Pallier, have played it.

It’s a housing estate course by Ross Watson. It’s a faux dunes style course, as the dunes were constructed on a fairly uninteresting site.

It is quite a reasonable course, although all the houses when completed, will diminish the aesthetics of the final product.

[D_Malley]

close to newcastle??

[Andrew Summerell]

close to newcastle??

About an hour south of Newcastle Golf Course, near a seaside town called The Entrance.

[David_Elvins]

Sean,

The course is definetly good but perhaps those on here have been spoilt by Barnbougle and St Andrews Beach opening and slightly lesser courses such as The Cut and Magenta Shores get lost a bit.  To put its place in context, I think Australian golf has 5-6 really good courses,  the next bracket has perhpas 25 courses and the 3rd bracket another 25.  I would put it in the third bracket, ie ranking between 30-60 in the country

The highlight of the ocurse to me is the bunkering (pictured below).  It is a great example (along wit hthe Links at Lady Bay, of how good bunkering and grasses can soften the artificialness of mounds.  





THe course is probably a bit on the tight size and there is an abundance of mounding perhaps becasue of this.  A lot of the tees are set low down.  For example the 2nd(?)hole below has 300m of beach frontage and the view looks great form the green (first picture below)looking back but the view from the tee (2nd picture)is dissapointing in my opinion.




here is a few photos of a par 3 (5th?)

Once again the first photo taken from the side of the hole gives a bette view of the hole than the second (from the tee)I think this type of shot with the green at similar level to the approach and mounding to the sides is overdone a bit.

[Mark_F]

I read in Golf Architecture about what looks to be a stunning new golf course in NSW.  Yet I have heard no mention of Magenta Shores!  Its time to spill the beans and tell us what you know.

Ciao

Sean,

It's the New South Welshmen who are inexplicably letting the side down.  They are not from Melbourne, and therefore a vastly different, and inferior, race.

The fact that there are apparently only two courses worth playing in NSW, it is beyond puzzlement when a new one opens why it hasn't been hyped to Donald-esque proportions.

[Andrew Summerell]

Mark,

There was a time when we were on equal footing with Melbourne in regards to golf. Then, of course, federation came along & it’s been all downhill since.
 

[Norbert P]

Dave,  by your reckoning . . .  "I would put it in the third bracket, ie ranking between 30-60 in the country."  

Considering that Aussie golf is tremendous, this sleeper would probably awaken golf course appreciation in my region of the world and be a must play.    What bracket is Coober Pedy in?

(OT BTW Dave, ... saw the comedian Lewis Black in concert last night from the second row - great seats.  Hilariously intense man. And no, I did not get spat upon. (He's a bit apoplectic and explosive in his speech.)

[Mark_F]

Mark,
There was a time when we were on equal footing with Melbourne in regards to golf. Then, of course, federation came along & it’s been all downhill since.
 

Andrew,

Are you sure it was federation?  I would have thought the Jurassic period was a little more accurate.  

[Richard Chamberlain]

Guys

To give you a bit of background on Watto, he's been in the game for about 30 years. Learned his trade on the local courses around Queensland before cracking his first 18 holer at Windaroo, just south of Brisbane.
He teamed up with Graham Marsh in the 80's and knocked out a bunch of resort type stuff. Probably The Vines, Paradise Palms in Cairns and Robina Woods were the pick.
After he split with Marshy he shot through to SE Asia where he set up digs in Kuala Lumpar for a few years and knocked out a few decent tracks. I think 3 of the top 5 in Malaysia are his designs.

I joined him in 2000 where things really took off for the old boy. He did some work on Royal Sydney and a bunch of remodels in the Sydney area.

Magenta was an exciting site to get hold of. He'd waited a long time to get a piece of land to get his teeth into...even though 1.1 mil cubic metres had to be moved to make it work with the residential. Before you choke on your corn flakes (or twinkies, or whatever you yanks have for brekkie) the land whilst in a fantastic location was badly degraded. 1/3 of the site was used as an old dump site and there were all sorts of nasties buried below. 300,000 cubic metres was used to cap this area with 1.5m of sand gained from other parts of the site.

Much of the remainder of the site was also in bad nick and in particular the dunes. We gained approval to not only repair the dunes but also reshape to gain views from the residiential...a rarity in recent NSW approval processes.

I particularly like the par 3's at Magenta. The 4th is a strong 180m shot into a man made amplitheatre of dunes. The 15th is a short 120m postage stamp style shot.

We have deliberately not over-hpyed the place, rather than let the punters play it and find its on spot on the rankings. I think Jeffrey might have been a little Vic biased and I would hope it can get into the 20-30 range.

Let me look through the archives and I may be able to provide some before / after shots.

[Danny Goss]

I think Jeffrey might have been a little Vic biased and I would hope it can get into the 20-30 range.

Jeffrey?? I must have missed his post!  

[Richard Chamberlain]

I think Jeffrey might have been a little Vic biased and I would hope it can get into the 20-30 range.

Jeffrey?? I must have missed his post!  

Bloody hell...forum overload....I meant Dave of course. (thank goodness I didn't utter the words "top 10".

[David_Elvins]

We have deliberately not over-hpyed the place, rather than let the punters play it and find its on spot on the rankings. I think David might have been a little Vic biased and I would hope it can get into the 20-30 range.

It could get into the top 30.  I will revise my innital comment to top 25-45 which sounds better than 30-60.   I reckon the top 5 are pretty set (Barnbougle, RWM, RME, KH, NSW) then you have about 20 courses that could fill the remaining spots in the top 10 depending on the trend of the day, conditioning and a bit of a tart up.  These courses would be National Moonah, National Old, Victoria, Commonwealth, 13th Beach, Royal Sydney, Newcastle, Woodlands, Peninsula South, Lake Karrinyup, Grange, Kooyonga, Royal Adelaide, Ellerston, St Andrews Beach, Kenendy Bay, Metro, The Lakes, and the Australian.   So that takes you to 25 courses.  Havent seen Brookwater or Royal Queensland but they might be in there too.

I think all of these courses are on better land than Magenta Shores and none have the cramped feel you get at Magenta Shores at times.  Like I sais earlier, I also thought the courses lookd good visually from places other than where you played shots from. For the amount of earth moved there seemed to be a few too many flat shots played between mounds, even if the mounds did look pretty good.  


I would put Magenta in the next group which would include courses like Portsea, THe Dunes, The Cut, Moonah Links Legends, Yarra Yarra, Joondalup, Heritage, Grange East, Peninsula North, Barwon Heads and maybe some of the Queensland courses I havent seen.  

Pretty good company if you ask me and having it ranked anywhere from 25-45 is pretty strong and a very worthy addition to Australian golf.  

The course I think it is most similar to is the Links at Lady Bay which I liked a lot of.  Magenta Shores seemd like a more consistent version of the style though.  

Should add that I havent played Magenta Shores so my opinion might change!   Definetly looking forward to playing it.

[Sean Walsh]

David,

A little suprised you include 13th beach in the top group ahead of the likes of Barwon Heads and Yarra.  I've only played it once but what did I miss.  

I thought it was a good course without reaching the level you have it.  It was six years ago so don't ask me to remember any details of the course  

[David_Elvins]

David,

A little suprised you include 13th beach in the top group ahead of the likes of Barwon Heads and Yarra.  I've only played it once but what did I miss.  

I thought it was a good course without reaching the level you have it.  It was six years ago so don't ask me to remember any details of the course  

I don't want to derail the thread but I really, really like the course.  Much much better than the Dunes IMO, a course that many rank it as similar to.  The 3rd hole doesn't quite work but I will defend the 4th, 5th and 6th vigourously.  The last 3 par 3s are rippers, 11 is a great par 5, 5 and 12 are good short 4s, the 1st is the perfect openner and there is a really good variety of solid Par 4s.  

I haven't played it for a while either, maybe we had better get down there when you are next in town.  

[Sean Walsh]

David,

Sounds good.

Now on the to do list for my return to Oz are:

Barnbougle again
Royal Adelaide
13th Beach and Barwon Heads
Newcastle with a stop at Magenta

[Andrew Summerell]

Membership & the housing have been quite extensively advertised in Sydney, & I would assume many of the members are from Sydney. I'm not sure how much hype has gone on in GCA circles.

It will probably rate higher than it should in the first few years, then settle at about 30 something.

I prefer the Magenta Shores over The Australian, but that may not come as any surprise to those who know me.

[Richard Chamberlain]

As you know Andrew I'm heading down in about 6 weeks to do Newcastle - Magenta.
Should be a bottler of a double header.

[Kevin Pallier]

Sean

I've only had the opportunity to play it once but was very impressed with that viewing. As Andrew says it's a bit of a hybrid links course with some holes through a wooded area and it played close to a 4-5 club breeze the day that I played it.

Like David / Andrew - I believe - it's certainly worthy of a debut into Australia's Top50 courses possibly even into the Top25. It's probably a tad overbunkered for mine and I'm not a big fan of long fescue around bunkers but it is certainly a very solid layout. It has a good variety of downbreeze / upbreeze holes with the P3's in all points of the compass.

Those P3's (save for 12) were probably the highlights and for a player who very much misses the great "links" of GB&I it was nice to play that style of golf course NSW. Certainly recommend one tag on a visit to Magenta Shores when visiting Newcastle GC.

It's currently set-up as a semi-private course (with stay and play offerings in on-course villas) and I believe accepts group bookings.

[David_Elvins]

Would this course be worth seeing if one were in Sydney?

Obviously the answer to that sort of question depends on time available and priorities.  If you were playing Newcastle it would probably be the best course to double up with if you wanted to play 36 in a day.  And you would definetly have a good day!

Richard,
How would you compare it to Terrey Hills?

[Andrew Summerell]

Would this course be worth seeing if one were in Sydney?

David is correct. It would be the best course to play if you were already going to Newcastle GC, although if you were short of time, it may not be the best option.

As someone who travels up to Newcastle a lot, you could play Newcastle & Magenta Shores in a day, but they are not that close & from door to door, it is a drive approaching 1 & a half hours. That being said, if you pick the right day, both courses are pretty quiet, so an early round at Newcastle & an afternoon round at Mag. Sh. would not be that difficult to manage.

[Richard Chamberlain]

Richard,
How would you compare it to Terrey Hills?

Dave/Jeff

Last time I was at Terrey Hils the joint was only half built. I've never been there after completion.
From what I've seen and heard (is that a dangerous assumption) I think MS walks all over TH. I reckon its easily Ross' best work by a mile. Incidentally Terrey Hills was commenced by Ross in the Marsh Watson days but they split before the project was completed by Marshy...and Ross isn't allowed to call it one of his designs.

Still looking for those before after photos too.

[Richard Chamberlain]

Aerial pic of the site.

Overview of site constraints.

This pic is looking up the mounding to the right of the 2nd hole.

[Andrew Summerell]

David/Richard,

I would place Magenta Shores above Terrey Hills.

Richard, I think you have played Twin Creeks. How do you compare Ross' work with Marshy's work these days ?

[Richard Chamberlain]

Richard, I think you have played Twin Creeks. How do you compare Ross' work with Marshy's work these days ?

Andy

I have only played Twin Creeks once and didn't mind it....although I was having a chop and it was just after some rain, so there was bugger all run on the fairways and I really struggled.

Definitely too much sand but I was at least pleased that they'd knocked out a different bunker style (the clover leaf) than that of Royal Pines, North lakes and most of their Asian courses. It wasn't until I got back to the office and checked out TC on google earth and the clover leaves are still there...just built with laced edges.