Have you ever wondered, after playing a golf course for the first time, whether it would have been better had the course not been constructed?
Over the past several days this thought has occurred to me on a number of occasions, after being an invited guest at Hidden Valley over a week ago.
The course, situated on the periphery of Central Victoria, about an hour’s drive north of Melbourne, is surrounded by some stunning scenery.
Hidden Valley Resort was developed by the late Robert Holmes a Court, a billionaire entrepreneur, as an equestrian centre, and that sport still plays a large part in Hidden Valley’s sporting activities.
Indeed, in retrospect, the place and surrounds are an ideal spot for the equine Olympic sport.
It is not an easy place to find either. My host gave me misleading instructions, and I ended up taking the wrong off ramp from the Hume Highway. The side road gradually turned to stone, then to dirt, before I spied a steeple in the middle distance believing it to be the clubhouse. It turned out to be a Tibetan Buddhist temple, and the smiling monk who answered the door couldn’t help me with directions to Hidden Valley.
A little while later, I came across two teenage girls riding their horses at the side of the dirt road, and I asked them if the could point me towards the Hidden Valley. The older of the two said, “Piss off creep, or I’ll call my father”, producing a mobile phone from her saddle bag as she was speaking.
This was indeed a strange part of Victoria thought I, so I headed back to the highway, and obtained directions from the service station.
The resort is located at the end of a dusty dirt road with obvious signs of a huge housing development taking place on the borders and within the golf course itself.
The area is pure clay soil - good, solid, caked clay. However, the Santa Anna fairways have thrived in such a questionable environment and were one of the few redeeming features of the golf course.
The site is undulating, and disappointingly, the mode of traverse preferred by he members appears to be the motorised cart. The course is not difficult to walk, save for a few long journeys between green the succeeding tee, and I was saddened to see so many fit young men riding with an air of nonchalance in the carts. I was later informed that the manager of the club is a former policewoman, who doesn’t play golf, and wants to turn the resort into an all-cart venue.
I know little of the company that designed the golf course, Pacific Coast Design, except to say that I was aware that they were redeveloping the Patterson River Country Club, and any alteration to that goat track of all goat tracks, could only be an improvement.
However, if they were to use Hidden Valley as a marketing tool for future developments, I don’t think they would be writing much business.
The design is unimaginative, and the only memorable hole is the last, which features an island green and is a very poor relation to the famous island green at TPC Sawgrass.
There are hidden water hazards everywhere, on the sides of fairways, over hillocks, behinds greens, tucked around dog-legs and memorably, on one of the back nine holes, right in the middle of fairway, located at the bottom of a hill and obscured from the tee.
From memory, 13 of the 18 holes feature water hazards, and hazards is most certainly the operative term for them.
On one of the par fives, the 16th, the landing area between the water hazards on either side of the fairway, is only about 10 metres. Drive too long on this hole and your ball disappears in the water, drive right and you finish in the water, drive left and say goodbye to your ball in the water. The only option is to drive over the left-hand hazard with a carry of around 235 metres, or tee off with a four iron. Great strategy eh?
I can’t be bothered going into detailed description of all the holes, as few of them are deserving of any laudable comments at all.
The last, the 180-metre island green is an interesting conclusion to a course that could be politely described as bland, or baldly, as bloody awful.
I can’t even go into detail about the last, as we played it in the dark, at around 6 pm.The four of us used five irons and upon arriving on the green we found only one ball on the putting surface.
All in all, this place is not worth the $10,000 joining fee (share) or the $2200 annual subscription. It is best used for equestrian events, as it was originally intended for, it is not golf country and never will be golf country.
The event of the day was Ambrose – a scratch event with no handicaps. We finished 12 up and won on countback. Each of us received a $100 gift voucher to be spent in the pro shop. Mine will never be spent, as I have little intention of putting in a return appearance at a golf course that most probably should not have been constructed on that particular plot of land in the first place.
Driving back out on the dirt road I found the valley enshrouded in a thick fog, and the eyes of two Eastern Grey Kangaroos stared back at me in the middle of the track, mesmerised by the glare of my car’s headlight.
Yes, this valley certainly has its attractions, but golf is surely not one of them.