The 'Cups Country' region of the Mornington Peninsula an hour or so south of Melbourne has seen a lot of golf course construction in the past decade or so.
Whilst the ubiquitous TWP have snaffled a fair bit of the action and come up with wincingly similar courses - crap - Greg Norman and the team of Doak/Clayton have managed to secure a bit of work for themselves too and come up with something totally different, although the land of Norman's Moonah Course at The National and Doak/Clayton's land at The Golf Club St Andrews Beach couldn't be more different.
Much of the Gunnamatta course at St Andrews Beach is between or alongside steep dunes, whereas the Moonah course landforms are much smaller than I had anticipated. The Moonah course is straight from the British Isles, aside from the sun shining, obviously. And the clouds of flies.
Interestingly, deception is at play on both courses, much more so at St Andrews Beach, but nevertheless at Moonah too. The first hole at the Moonah course appears unreasonably narrow from the tee, yet widens out behind the foreboding dune in front of you to a pretty wide fairway, a theme repeated somewhat throughout the course, whereas the Doak/Clayton deception tends to be in wondering whereabouts the flagstick is exactly located on the greens.
Another favourite deception at St Andrews Beach is that on five or six holes the flagstick can be (just) temptingly seen fluttering behind a dune from the tee, luring the golfer into heading straight for it, which is usually the worst angle. There is a lot more thought required to play the Gunnamatta course - words such as unorthodox and quirky spring to mind, whereas the Moonah course is more straightforward, and obviously favours unthinking brutes.
One of the biggest differences to me was the greens. Every one on the Gunnamatta course is unique in size, shape and contour. They also look as if they were simply there already. Conversely, I thought many of the Moonah course greens were repetitious, and obviously constructed - especially the sixth.
Doak and Clayton have a love of great short par fours, and Gunnamatta features several, all with multiple options to play. Norman's Moonah course on the other hand, features one, the ninth, which appears to be there merely to link the eighth and tenth holes. The sixth and eleventh could also be classified as short/medium holes I guess, and whilst the eleventh is a beauty, the sixth too appears to have been forced into place to make the whole thing work.
Interestingly, on a very long - 6576 or so metres - course, Norman has gone for a mix of par threes, from short, to a couple of medium, and one long, whereas the Gunnamatta, a relatively puny 6070 metres, has two bloody long, one pretty long, and one medium par three.
Interestingly also, is that both courses have an (excessively) long par four to torture. On the Moonah course, it's all of 447 metres, slightly uphill to boot, and into the prevailing wind. On Gunnamatta, its 452 metres, with a blind drive and 90% of the time into a howling gale so strong members really need mountain climbing cleats on their shoes to stay afoot. Neither work as par fours, or par fives for that matter. Pity, as there is a much better potential tee location at Gunnamatta than the two already there that would make it the hole it should be.
The bunkering also couldn't be more different. The Moonah course's resemble ruggedly excavated pits, whereas those on the Gunnamatta are elegantly sculpted but nevertheless appear like natural scars.
The Moonah course is long and difficult. The Gunnamatta, short and still quite difficult, although in a not so immediately challenging way.