I also had the pleasure of playing the Gunnamatta last week and here are some impressions as a higher handicap jet lagger. I defer to Tom and the RGD team to add any technical corrections but IMHO and having never previously played the Ocean/National let alone anywhere in Australia, I found it a quite entertaining piece of golf. I appreciated the flow, elevation changes and intra/inter dune routed use of contours.Regarding ratings, as a rater, I don’t mind the immaturity and usually see through it. If grass growing in will negatively affect your rating as a rater, I would let it mature as the fescue surrounds are young and the surrounds and fairway adjacent ares are still being dialed in by RGD and the fantastic super US/Iowa born and Iowa State Grad, Ex-Pat Tony Gordon. ;-)
IMO, conditioning was excellent, firm and fairways were “Bermuda” Fast. The fescue surrounds were especially festive for me, a mid handicap old guy. I had some nice run up opportunities, but ONLY IF I was able to place them in the fairway properly. Great risk reward for accuracy. When you get it right, the results are like a carnival. Hit the wrong side of the fairway, you might find yourself behind a dune with a blind shot to the flag where your opponent across the same fairway can see the paint drip lines inside the cup. Short side yourself on hole 14(?), creativity becomes your best tool for a punchbowl like putt around a horseshoe green side Pot bunker to a flag tucked “around the corner”. All of the above make for great golf competition and entertainment.
Interestingly a number of the holes have an amphitheater feel which made for entertaining viewing of the final matches. I had not played the pre renovation Ocean course. As a first timer, it felt like an outstanding course for a club where a good player can play 18 and not lose a ball… although the... :”every snake and spider you see can kill you”... thing gives one pause when/if you decide to go ball hunting. It struck me as an outstanding course for competition, excellently balanced for everyday member play. Lazy member golf will be penalized, but focused member play, as I assume the membership prefers, was quite enjoyable. When the wind came up from one of the three prevailing directions, the routing balanced risk/reward for each wind direction. In touring the other two courses, I echo previous comments, if a person has one of the others as a favorite, this will likely not supplant their favorite. For me, this would be my choice. I enjoyed the way it worked into the land forms and the dunes. It felt like a sibling to the sand belt course further north.
Neither twin nor triplet of Royal Melbourne or St. Andrews Beach, but a symbiotic sibling. Gunnamatta was more formal and manicured than St. Andrews Beach but equally bold. With natural amphitheaters, intermittent vistas of the Pacific and a couple of infinity greens, when Gunnamatta matures, it will likely end up high on a number of Top XXX Lists. As far as the RGD courses I was able to visit, RMGC was of course the most bold and regal. The National was bold and formal. St. Andrews Beach was boldly whimsical, a golfing carnival of a playground. All were architecturally excellent. If a rater/rating is able to discount the immaturity of the new grass, Gunnamatta was an excellent improvement over the previous and likely in the top group of courses in the Sand Belt “neighborhood”. If a rating criteria has to include aesthetic conditioning, wait a season for the new grass, surrounds and fairway adjacent to mature. Either way, it was an excellent piece of golf. The experimental enjoyment grew with each lap. Plus there are few things as fun as the thump of playing a sand based course with new grass as the first organic layer next to the sand. Fresh Golf.