Australian golf

[BHoover]

October is usually a good month for golf in Ohio. This year, however, has been a bit hectic for me for a number of reasons, not all of which are related to golf. However, the other reason that I look forward to this time of year is that it's the chance to watch some golf from Australia. This week is the Perth event at Lake Karinyup. I think we also get to see Royal Melbourne and Royal Sydney this year.  

I do wish that Golf Channel would focus a bit more on the courses themselves, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Anyone else looking forward to watching these events?

[Rees Milikin]

Definitely want to check out the World Cup of Golf broadcast.

Edit: I enjoyed the broadcast last year of Lake Karrinyup, and just noticed the golf channel has an AM showing this year.  Glad to see these courses get some TV time.

[Michael Wharton-Palmer]

Brian,
I look forward to it each and every year.

[Nigel Islam]

Me too!

[David_Elvins]

Lake Karrinyup is a really good course and a great golf club.

If you don't live in Perth, it's a long way to go for a round of golf, but definitely worth checking out. 

[Josh Stevens]

Not the greatest field that has ever teed it up, but those who make it to perth do seem to enjoy it.  The course is certainly very foreign to just about anything else the non-Australians would play all year.  They all look terribly confused at how something so wide open and lacking in rough can be so tricky.

[Brian Finn]

Just now watching some of the tournament in Perth, and Lake Karrinyup CC looks outstanding. It seems that even on a course with quite a few trees, there is tremendous width, presenting some genuine strategic options via angle of attack.  Combined with the gusting winds and firm conditions, it looks incredibly fun.

Is there any good reason why more US courses could not be designed and maintained somehow closer to this?  I understand differences in soil, climate, and precipitation factor in, but wouldn't it be nice to see more courses presented in such a way. I was somewhat familiar with the sandbelt courses of Melbourne, but seeing this course on the West coast convinces me further that the Australian golf community 'gets it.'

[Mike_Clayton]

Brian,

We rebuilt all the greens and bunkers at Karrunyup in 2007-08. The most controversial - amongst the predictable section of the membership that every club has - thing we did was take out a lot of trees. It improved the holes immeasurably.

The course was designed in the early 30s by Alex Russell just after he had finished up the East Course at Royal Melbourne - and so many of the trees that came out were planted long after he had left. It's a long way from the rest of the country and there are only a few courses in Perth flying all that way to see - and a 'few' is a stretch. What is amazing is that no capital city in the world has better land for golf - and made so little of it.

[Josh Stevens]

It is a great pity. I went to watch a few holes of the WA open at Mt Lawley last week, a course that has at times been regarded as no 2 in Perth.  The only observation is the gap that now exists between no 1 and the rest.  Its Karrinyup, then daylight until about 10th place.

ITs a small town I suppose, only so much demand for quality golf, but yes, such a waste.

Lovely to see the big boys pull out driver on driveable par fours and walk off with bogey, or double bogey.  Dustin Johnson took bogey on the driveable 10th (for him) and double on the even more driveable 14th.  Gives one a nice warm feeling to watch that.

[Mark Saltzman]

It is a great pity. I went to watch a few holes of the WA open at Mt Lawley last week, a course that has at times been regarded as no 2 in Perth.  The only observation is the gap that now exists between no 1 and the rest.  Its Karrinyup, then daylight until about 10th place.

ITs a small town I suppose, only so much demand for quality golf, but yes, such a waste.

Lovely to see the big boys pull out driver on driveable par fours and walk off with bogey, or double bogey.  Dustin Johnson took bogey on the driveable 10th (for him) and double on the even more driveable 14th.  Gives one a nice warm feeling to watch that.

Mt Lawley is no. 2 in Perth?

What about Kennedy Bay, The Cut or Joondalup?

I did some (admittedly limited) research about golfing in WA and Mt Lawley was never mentioned.

[Matthew Mollica]

You're right Mark - Kennedy Bay is a clear #2. Not sure I'd play Mt. Lawley if I had 5 games in and around Perth.

MM

[David_Elvins]

Mt Lawley was number 2 before those courses were built.  Most of the big Perth clubs are on great land for golf.  Cottesloe and My Lawley are 3/10 courses on 9/10 sites.

And none of joodalup, Kennedy bay or the cut were in Perth when they were built although suburbia has reached joondalup and isn't far away from reaching the others.

[Josh Stevens]

If you were to offer the blank sites of ML, Cott and LK to a bunch of modern architects, all would take Cott and ML.  LK would be viewed as too hilly and too difficult.  And yet look how it turned out.  And to make it worse, both ML and Cott went through major reno programs in the last 10 years that actually made their courses significantly worse.

Could have been great.

[Mike_Clayton]

Josh

Sun City will sail past both when its finished. Maybe that will open a few eyes over there as to the possibilities - maybe not.
Karrinyup was never going to do that because it was a decent course already. Sun City was awful - if its potential is the measure.

[Josh Stevens]

Better be careful putting that in writing Mac.  The members may wave it in your face in a few years if it does work out.

Can only help however - send ML and Cott plunging out of the top 100 lists.

[Mike_Clayton]

Josh

The real question is - what would have happened if MacKenzie had gone to Perth and had the same influence that he had in Melbourne?

[Josh Stevens]

Does i suppose raise the issue of the myth of what we think of when we say "australian golf".We imagine hard, fast, wide, strategic and short grass. But how many courses actually meet this criteria as their standard presentation week in week out? Maybe half a dozen on a good day?

Its a bit of  a crocodile dundee issue- the vast gulf between how we would like to think we are and how we really are.
Plump, tight, overwatered, unimaginative, penal and covered in mounds, trees and long grass is more accurate.

[Chris Kane]

Josh, you're right. 'Australian golf' more accurately describes the best Melbourne courses and maybe a couple of others, which are the only ones that the typical overseas visitor will see.

The reality is that our top handful are world-class, but the depth just isn't there at the moment.

This was quite a thought provoking piece by Darius Oliver last year: http://www.planetgolf.com.au/index.php?id=1594

[BHoover]

Josh, you're right. 'Australian golf' more accurately describes the best Melbourne courses and maybe a couple of others, which are the only ones that the typical overseas visitor will see.

The reality is that our top handful are world-class, but the depth just isn't there at the moment.

This was quite a thought provoking piece by Darius Oliver last year: http://www.planetgolf.com.au/index.php?id=1594

I suppose that I'm as guilty as anyone in having my idea of what golf in Australia is like. I see the Melbourne and Sydney courses on television and assume (incorrectly) that what I'm seeing represents what golf in Australia is like.

But I assume that most outside America think of USA golf as Augusta National, Long Island and Pebble Beach.

[Josh Stevens]

Australian golfers are little different than others about the place.  They like trees and lots of green grass - it looks nice.

[Mark_F]

The reality is that our top handful are world-class, but the depth just isn't there at the moment.

Chris,

There would be much more depth if so many courses hadn't buggerised around incessantly with their layouts.  

The real tragedy is the Mornington Peninsula - Nine courses, with only two of any consequence, when all of them should be world class. That TWP could have screwed up three of them on their own and not had to apologise to the Australian public for their gross incompetence defies belief.

[David_Elvins]

Josh, you're right. 'Australian golf' more accurately describes the best Melbourne courses and maybe a couple of others, which are the only ones that the typical overseas visitor will see.

I would disagree with that completely.  

There is a big difference in style between 2nd and 3rd tier Australian golf courses and 2nd and 3rd tier American courses.  

To take but a handful of examples, courses like Leongatha, Lang Lang, Kew, Latrobe, Cobram, Cranbourne, Keysborough, Sanctuary Lakes, all have Australian influences and they would be very different if they were in the States.

[Chris Kane]

There would be much more depth if so many courses hadn't buggerised around incessantly with their layouts.  

Very true.

I would disagree with that completely.  

Of course you would, having taken what I said completely out of context  

I was responding to Josh's description of 'Australian golf' - We imagine hard, fast, wide, strategic and short grass. I agree that there are Australian influences at the courses you listed when compared to comparable courses overseas, but that is a different point what what Josh was talking about.

[Thomas Dai]

Probably because of what we see on TV, Aussie golf is generally characterised as a firm, fast, running game played on sand-belt type courses. But Aussie is a huge place and as I recall the further up the East Coast you go it gets more and more semi-tropical/tropical so wouldn't that mean a completely different type of course/grasses/game etc than we who live in other parts of the globe normally envisage?

Perhaps someone from Down Under could give us an appreciation of non-sandbelt golf in Aussie.

All the best

[Josh Stevens]

Let us not forget that Australia is roughly the same size as the contintental US, but with the population of Texas.  So firstly there is a bit of variety in geography and climate, but not actually many people.  The US has more than 10x the number of golf courses than Australia.

So it is probably a bit much to expect us to have a gem on every st corner.

IT is no surprise that the best are in the southern cities that boast mediteranean climates - wet winters and hot dry summers. Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.  The sandy areas in these cities produce the sand belt courses.  But economics and lack of people means that each city can really only support a few top clubs, and so we just don't have the depth of quality.