[Chris Kane]

Any news on the new 'sandbelt' courses designed by GCA's own Thomson Wolveridge and Perrett?  The marketing machine was in full force a few months ago, but has dropped off considerably recently.

They were pushing memberships etc. quite enthusiastically opposite Paul Daley's stand at the Heineken, but I've yet to hear of them since then.  

It will be very interesting to see what TWP come up with out there.  For starters, is the land any good?

[Shane Gurnett]

Chris

Its very flat. Apparently the memberships are selling ok, and the course works have begun. Dont know much beyond that, other than I hope it works out well for those involved.

Shane

[Justin_Ryan]

Chris
Shane is right, the land is dead flat, and appeared to be more clay belt than sandbelt when I looked at it.  Given that they made a mess of pure golfing country at the National, I don't think that anyone here is expecting that they will do anything very good.  I believe the team behind the project was responsible for the Sanctuary Lakes development, and it is interesting that they have chosen TWP over the Shark for the Sandhurst courses.  I would have assumed that the Shark would be a better name for selling housing blocks than TWP, so perhaps there was a falling out.  Of course, given that a large proportion of people who buy land on these estates don't play golf, I'm sure that they will be satisfied as long as the fairways are green and there is plenty of water to look at.

I would be much more interested in hearing about Mike Clayton's effort at Ranfurlie, someone out there must have played it by now.

[Chris Kane]

Justin,

By the evening of May 5, I'm there will be at least eight people here able to post an opinion on Ranfurlie.  Interesting how there has been almost nothing said of it in the media - surely this isn't a reflection on the course - what I saw of it I liked.

I'm not expecting anything either way from TWP at Sandhurst - if it's good, it's good, and if it's bad - well thats one more for the TWP coffin.  A futile exercise to predict that it will be a shocker, however, if they put an effort in like the Ocean Course again, God save us.

I don't plan to bash anyone until the course is actually built, and proven good, bad or worse.  With dead flat land, they have the odds stacked against them, which is a shame.

[Shane Gurnett]

Guys

It may pay to wait until these two courses come out of the ground before we pass any judgements. From memory I think that there will be one "championship" course and one "members" course" whatever that means.

Maybe TWP do their best work on flat decks?

Justin, are you a starter at Ranfurlie on the 5th?

Chris, there has a bit of exposure on the radio for Ranfurlie, but thats all. I think the members want to keep it low key for the time being which is a good thing. What I've been hearing is all postive at this stage. No claims yet of it being the "best course in the world" unlike some other recent course opening down that way.

[Mike Duffy]

I went out there about five months ago for the first auction of blocks fronting the golf course. My budget was $290,000.

I was told "you';e in the ball park at that price". Typical real estate novelism. The bidding started at $330,00 and the block we had our eyes on went on to $425,000 (bought by Robbie Flower - so I was told later).

Subsequently I have been inundated with marketing junk from the promoters urging me to buy a block in the second release which is due next month, however, in the meantime, we have purchased elsewhere.

Yes, the land is dead flat, but from what I could see, it had a primarily sandy base.

The plans at the promoter's offices looked quite impressive, but at the end of it, the proof of it all will be in its finality.

Shark Enterprizes (Medallist) were approached so I was told but IMG seems to have the inside running on new developments, at moment, in Melbourne.

[Dr Kildare]

Mike,

When you say IMG have the front running for new developments in Melbourne, do you mean IMG alone or IMG+TWP in their new marriage ?

It's got me buggered if they are two separate entities, how the hell can they bid seperately on projects.
Also, if the new IMG+TWP firm are awarded a project, does the design work come out of the TWP office in Melb or the IMG office in Cleveland (i think) ?

[Mike Duffy]

Dr Kildare,

I mean the latter IMG + TWP. I assume the drawings come from their Coromandel Place office in the city.

IMG appear to be the marketers of the business and the arm-twisters. They seem to be very good at the latter.

They took the new development at Keysborough off the Medallist/Macquarie partnership; they pipped Medallist at Sandhurst, and I believe they are the front-runners for another project that is in the pipeline.

[Matthew Delahunty]

I resurrected this old thread becuase I was driving past the Sandhurst development today and popped for a look. I had previously (about 12 months ago) had a look when I was thinking in investing in some real estate on one of these developments - at the time Moonah Links appeared slightly more inviting than this but I ended up keeping the money in my pocket.  Anwyay, the North Course is almost complete. The fairways and greens are reasonably well grassed and the clubhouse is under construction - I would think they're looking at a March 2004 opening. The North Course sits out on its own - ie, the housing developments don't intermingle with the fairways but are in 2 large blocks on the south side of the course - there are lots of houses going up in stage 1 - the expensive plots are on the artificial island which looks across to the 9th hole and 4th, 8th greens but there hasn't been any construction occurring there yet.
I didn't go walking the course - I figured some security guard would probably come and lynch me. Overall the course is flat with a fair bit of earthmoving to create some undulations. It's entirely treeless and there don't appear to be too many plantings except around the boundaries of the development. There aren't really any dogleg holes (a bit strange because TWP could've routed the course any way they liked on this flat open space). The bunkers are the Thomson favourite reverse-curve similar to those at Moonah Links, the fairways are generous and the greens I saw looked to be typcially TWP. The course had more of a resort course feel than a typical Melbourne/sandbelt course feel. Maybe that was just because I was looking at it from near the man-made lakes in the middle of the property or the lack of vegetation. The closing holes on each nine play around the water. 11 and 17 share a double green which appears from my map to have a dip in the middle. 9 is named Bluidy Burn - I assume after the one at Cruden Bay - but it doesn't appear to bear much resemblance - a lake all the way down the left being the obvious difference, and I wouldn't be confident of being able to scoop out my ball if I landed in it. The green is actually an island green.

#3 is sure to attract the most attention of any hole on the course, and perhaps any hole in Melbourne. It's in the northeast corner of the property - I drove around and got a glimpse of its major feature from outside the bouadary fence. Named "Wall" it is a 170m par three which plays to a green set against a stone wall. In fact the wall creates a corner in which the green sits, ie, it runs along the left side and behind the green. It's meant to carry the flavour of the likes of 13 at North Berwick but the wall doesn't look very old or authentic. It's got clean sharp corners, smooth slightly-concave faces and is made from that light brown stone - the sort of stuff they use on the entrance walls to new housing estates (they've used the same stuff as the retaining wall for the "burn" on 9. The wall also sits on the highest point on that part of the course. I couldn't see the green but the hole looked to play slightly uphill - I'm not sure if the green rises from front to back. There are entry ways in the left side and in the back wall. I think it's best to wait until the course opens and people play the hole before making any judgment about it but I'm sure it will create a lot of comment. I'll say this about it - there's three places I wouldn't want to hit on this hole - left of the wall, over the wall (or through the gap in it) or into the corner.

Here's a link which shows the design:
http://www.sandhurst.com/northfeature.shtml

There's plans for another course to the south which appears to be on better land. TWP are meant to be designing it as well in collaboration with past PGA champions (whatever that means). The course is meant to be "sandbelt" in style. Unfortunately, this is the course which will intermingle with the housing development. I would have thought that it would've made better sense for the course with the more undulating land to be the stand alone course - but I suppose the golf course is really only the secondary concern to the developers.

[Brian Walshe]

Dela,

Thanks for the update.  Be interesting to see how the North Course is received as some of TWP's efforts of late have polarised people.  The Ocean Course at the National has been controversial to say the least and people have a love it or hate it attitude towards "The Leviathan".  Compare this to the reaction to most of Bob Harrison’s (Moonah at the National, The Glades, The Vintage, Brookwater), Tony Cashmore’s (13th Beach) or Mike Clayton’s (Ranfurlie) efforts of late, all of which seem to have had a strong majority of positive comments.

It is fairly obvious that the Legends Course and Sandhurst are going to be very important to the perception of TWP moving forward.  At the moment the jury may be undecided, but I don’t think they would want the next two courses to be met with the same reaction as the last couple.

[Matthew Delahunty]

Brian,

I don't know whether this course was ever designed to rival the greats courses of the sandbelt or even the Moonah course at the National. It's clearly aimed to please a specific demographic in a similar way to Sanctuary Lakes, the Heritage, etc. Thomson is quoted in the glossy brochure: "My objective at Sandhurst is to create a links style course that builds on the tradition of Melbourne's famous sandbelt; courses that play true with a few surprises." There's definitely an attempt to introduce a bit of a links flavour - double greens, burns, stone walls. It'll be interesting to see how these are received. The ideas might be good ones but how well can you introduce Scottish links idiosyncrasies into an inland course in Australia which has a couple of man-made resort-style lakes? I hope the concepts come off and add to the golfing landscape around Melbourne. If they don't Sandhurst may well become just another real estate golfing development with an ok course which has a few gimmicks. At the moment all we can to is wait and see what it delivers before making judgment.
 
Since the PGA is going to be based there I assume that sometime down the track the Australian PGA tournament is going to be played there. That's when the course will be scrutinised. The course wasn't really designed for such an event and I hope the critics keep that in mind.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing the Legends. It's on more interesting land than the Open course. I understand Perrett got his hands on this one. I saw a bit of it about 12 months ago when I got driven around the development by a real estate agent. It won't be the monster in length that the Open is. Looked like a few more interesting green complexes. Word is that it'll may be open to the corporate and medallion holders - but at the moment they're taking bookings from the general public when it opens next month ($75 per round).

I suppose we'll get a fair indication about the quality of the Open course when they play the Aus Open in six weeks. Will it stand up to the test it was designed for?

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