The National GC, Australia (Moonah and Ocean)

[Chris Kane]

I've created a new thread for organisation of the day at Ranfurlie, which might be an easier way to organise than to send all corrospondance to one person.

Hope you don't mind Nic.

http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/YaBB.cgi?board=GD1&action=display&num=1015902826

[Anthony O Shea]

Dear All,

It's now more than 12 months since I posted the following lengthy piece in praise of the Moonah. And, after spending another month on the Pensinula this past December, and playing the Moonah nearly every day, I have no reason to change my opinion. I think it's one of the two or three best courses in Australia...

"I've been lurking around this site for a while now waiting for George Blunt to post, as promised, his thoughts on the new Moonah Course at The National G.C. (i.e. the Australian National, which I've recently joined). However, my impatience now has the better of me and I think I'll just dive in and try to start the conversation myself.

I presently live and work in Sydney, but I've just returned from more than a month in Victoria, during which time I played the Moonah probably three dozen times. I played it in competition, in fun, in wind from every quarter, in driving rain, in 100 degree heat. I played it first out in the morning and several times until the light beat me home at night. I played it with my wife, with strangers, with new friends and old enemies, and more than once I played it on my Pat Malone (as we say in the penal colonies). I played a few of the best rounds of my life on it, and more than a few of my worst.

To put it in a nutshell, I believe it is a course of astonishing quality. A couple of weeks into my stay, I found myself driving back up to Royal Melbourne to play the West Course again, just to re-establish my benchmark.

What did I find? Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think RM is necessarily a better course. In fact, to my mind, the Moonah can stand, with Royal Melbourne West and Royal Adelaide, as one of the three best courses I've played in Australia. (I'm not alone in this hyperbolic ranking. Mike Clayton, European and Australasian Tour stalwart, course designer and commentator, former Metropolitan G.C. Club Champion and long-time champion of the Sand Belt and promoter of classic golf course architecture down under, is quoted on another website as declaring it already one of the two best courses in Australia.)

Could it really be as good as Royal Melbourne?

The argument you could have on this score reminds me a little of the old Melbourne debate about the relative merits of RM and Kingston Heath [only this time the boot's on the other foot]. Many locals argue that the Heath is a better design than the West Course (and perhaps better even than the Composite Course), reasoning that Soutar's routing and Mackenzies' bunkering added more architectural value to a limited property than Mackenzie et al managed with better land at RM. However, advocates of Kingston Heath generally have to concede - when the terms of the debate are agreed to be overall course quality not 'just' architectural intervention - that RM is not just the better property but the better golf course. (The other arguments advanced in Kingston Heath's favour are more difficult to refute: they include the immaculate maintenance standards, resistance to scoring - especially at the elite level - and the always firm, fast presentation of the course.)

I think you could have a similar argument about the relative merits of RM West and the Moonah Course, only this time casting RM in the unfamiliar role of the course where somebody had to do more with less. What Mackenzie, Russell and Morcom achieved at Black Rock is unquestionably great. Holes 4, 5, 6, 12 and 17 are 'all-world' in conception and execution. Other holes on the course (e.g. 8, 9, 11 and 18) are near to the same quality, although (and this may raise hackles and start arguments here) I've always thought holes like 1, 3 and 10 are a mixture at least two parts odd to every one part good. (I have similar reservations about #3 at Royal Adelaide, but that's another story).

Continuing in the same vein, you could argue the 7th on the West Course is just an uphill filler (dare I say 'afterthought'?), the four holes (13 through 16) across Cheltenham Road are no more than good holes, and there's nothing special at all about a hole like the second. (Playing the course for the first time some years ago, I had an almost inadvertent, strategy-free eagle on the second hole, when, attempting to lay up from the right after a slightly flared drive, I caught a five iron flier from the first cut that ran onto the green.)

But the thing that's really inescapable when you're playing the West Course, and this is the reverse of the 'Ocean Effect', is that you're playing on a course that is constrained - indeed fragmented - by busy, non-descript suburban roads. This, compounded with several other factors, makes the experience of playing the West Course somehow slightly piecemeal.

These other factors include the very different character of the terrain across Cheltenham Road, and the fact that the routing in places gets almost tangled in the East Course. This last fact serves to make the routing seem less inevitable or more arbitrary than it otherwise might. I think of how you walk past the 18th green of the East Course (also the 18th of the Composite) to get to the pro-shop and the first tee of the West. After two holes, it occurs to you that you haven't played anything that approaches the quality of the hole you walked past on the way in.

The other argument that is always advanced in favour of the West Course over Kingston Heath is the sheer scale and dramatic topography of the Black Rock property. The amazing thing is that after a couple of weeks playing on The Cups (the name for the wind-ravaged land over which the Moonah is laid), Royal Melbourne appeared to me curiously small and flat. It was like returning to a place you'd lived as a child.

Ran Morrisett's review of the Moonah Course on this site opens with a very good question about whether some land is in fact too dramatic for golf. Several years ago, I spent an afternoon standing on a balcony beside the 'old' RTJ Jnr course at The National, gazing out over The Cups land down in the valley far below, hoping some day someone would muster the courage and resources to build a golf course down there.

This epiphany was so real at the time that I made a call from that balcony to a good friend living overseas to tell him that I was looking down on some of the best golfing terrain I had seen anywhere in the world. I remember qualifying that claim at the time, explaining that I was standing several hundred feet above the land, and that if I could get down to it I may find that it was actually too 'big' for golf. When I first walked the Moonah during construction, I revisited that same conversation with the same friend. The dunes and corrugations of The Cups that had looked almost like St Andrews at twilight from a few hundred feet up on the ridge, are in fact bigger than Birkdale when you get down among them. Much bigger!

We joked that this might indeed be perfect golfing terrain… perhaps in a few thousand years, when the average adult male is 12 feet tall and carries his drives 600 yards, or else in a few million years after that when the wind has flattened it another 50%.

But this was all before I had played it. For the most part, the way Harrison and Norman have found their golf through this land is extraordinary. The slopes and elevation changes are in places spectacular, but every one of the 18 holes is eminently playable, and the game that this terrain makes possible is incredible. Ride the wind and carry the lucky corner of a dune and it is nothing for your ball to bound another 60 or 70 yards down the fairway. Land a yard on the wrong side of the diagonal spine down the stark third hole and you could be playing a three iron in instead of an eight. Land that same three iron anywhere within twenty yards of the left edge of the green and you'll finish on the putting surface.

There's no escaping the fact that the land is awesome. You cannot but be overwhelmed by it the first time you drive into the property along the new road, past the grazing thoroughbreds, over and around a mountainous dune, and then look out across the 36 holes of the National's new Ocean and Moonah courses rising and falling among the dunes with the ribbon of National Park and the waters of Bass Strait as a backdrop.

But the salient point is this: As good as the land undoubtedly is, Norman and Harrison's design has improved it, accenting and highlighting the contours, posing questions, defining strategy. Has the architecture improved the property to the point where it can be compared to Mackenzie's achievement at Royal Melbourne? Maybe not, but I don't know if that's the right question. Is it as good a course as RM West? In many ways yes; in some, perhaps not; and yet in others it is clearly superior.

I played a couple of rounds on the Moonah with a prominent member of both Royal Melbourne and The National who now drives an hour south, starting out from very near Black Rock, both days of every weekend to play his golf. That doesn't say it all, but it says something.


A few valid criticisms? ... [continued in next post]

[Anthony O Shea]

[continued from previous post]
...
A few valid criticisms
 
Despite the facetious tone of this 'review', I don't make these claims lightly. I didn't suspend my critical faculties or lose my reason in rating this course. I wasn't just in a good mood because I was on holidays or because I was enjoying my 'honeymoon' as a new National member. Nor was I trying to re-assure myself that I'd made a good investment. The course is simply that good!

If anything, in playing the course so many times in such a concentrated period, I found myself more critically engaged than ever before on a golf course. I was really trying to articulate to myself what it was that made the course work on me in the way it did. In so doing, I managed to find a number of design elements or decisions that were not above question, but I really wasn't good enough to find anything that I could say seriously compromised the quality of the course or the site.


What about the short out, long in routing?

If you really wanted to quibble, you could question the balance of the Moonah's routing. The course is essentially out and back with just a couple of switchbacks or sidesteps each way. However, the farthest point from the first tee is not, as you might guess, the ninth green or the tenth tee, but the eleventh green and twelfth tee.

In trying to find, as Harrison and Norman claim, the 18 best holes on the property - 'wherever they lay' - they've done some great tight work close to the turn. Holes 8 through 11 zig-zag ingeniously into the most remote corner of the property, hard up against the massive sand dunes of the Mornington Peninsula National Park and an adjoining farm. (Take a look at the interactive map on the National website: www.nationalgolf.com.au)

However, Harrison then seems to have found himself a long way from the clubhouse without a lot of holes left up his sleeve. As a consequence, the closing holes are by any measure a bit overweight. The last three par fours - 14, 16 and 18 - are in order 422 metres (I think that's 464 yards in the old language), 447 metres (492 yards) and 412 metres (453 yards). These are real distances from the back tees, the same tees that we members play from in medal rounds. And there's not much in the way of relief from the 'forward' tees we play every other round - at 462 yards, 464 yards and 437 yards. We're not in the mountains here, this is right beside the sea, and each of these holes must be played into the wind as often as upon it.

The holes between these par fours at the finish - a magnificent 585 yard par five at 15 (a hole that twists and writhes slowly downhill and to the right for two-thirds of its length before kinking back sharply uphill and to the left around a huge dune at the end) and a 221 yard one-shotter at 17 - don't offer much respite either.

In sharp contrast to the finish, the last three par fours on the way out play at a kindly 289 metres (#9), 356 metres (#10) and 334 metres (#11) from the members' tees. The 10th and 11th especially are very different, quite unique golf holes, as subtle and quirky as the closing holes are stout.

(The ninth we now understand (thanks to a one-hour, Network-televised special on the making of the National's two new courses - a story in itself: prime-time golf architecture) is a compromised design. Norman and Harrison originally wanted it to play somewhat longer, with the approach shot traversing the line of the tee shot on the semi-blind par three 13th in a homage to the crossover at the turn on The Old Course. Those plans were scotched when a nervous club consulted unsentimental lawyers, and it must be said the result feels somewhat manufactured, truncated or abbreviated. This will sound strange, but the ninth feels oddly, uncharacteristically short and 'fat' amidst a succession of lean, mean beauties.)

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. The taut holes at the turn and the mighty holes at the finish are all superb, and I don't think I'd change a one. However, largely as a result of this 'imbalance', I've found the course to be perhaps 5 shots easier (for me as a 7-marker) when the wind is from the north and helping on the way home. Playing into the wind on the way out is also an advantage as the approach shots on several holes (1, 6 and 8 especially) are next-door to impossible downwind.


Are the par threes as good as the rest of the holes?

The only other thing I would say if I was arguing the negative on the Moonah, is that I don't think the par threes - as a set - are quite as good as the fours and fives. Others disagree, and indeed my argument may be more a reflection of the quality of the two- and three-shotters than of any inherent weakness with the threes. To be sure, I have never played a better par five than the 15th, and the other three long holes are almost as good. With the first hole and the ninth as possible exceptions, every par four on the course is outstanding, with the fourth, tenth, eleventh, sixteenth and eighteenth deserving of special mention. (I'm loathe to highlight particular holes, because it is the overall strength, aesthetic consistency and strategic variety of the course that sets it apart. In this regard, the Moonah reminds me of Royal Adelaide, the other course I bracketed it with above).

By contrast to the variety of the par fours and fives, I think the first three short holes (5, 8 and 13) are a little too similar in length and concept. Each is a short iron downwind, maybe middle-iron into it; each is at least partly obscured, by mounding and/or bunkering (the 13th almost entirely); and the line to each from the tee is in each case somehow oblique. The tee on the 5th is offset to the left, the left side of the green is perilously bunkered and falls away probably 30 feet, and the green is almost impossible to hold from the left tee in a left-to-right wind. Next up, the 8th tee is offset to the right, the front right of the green is hideously bunkered, the false front on the green falls away probably 30 feet, and the green is almost impossible to hold downwind. Not quite mirror-reverse, but not as much fun as many or maybe any of the approaches to the par fours and fives. The 13th, a blind-but-for-the-top-of-the-flag par 3, is obscured by a short, bunkered mound, and is unquestionably my least favourite hole on the course, but Norman liked it enough to refuse to compromise it in dispute over the proposed cross-over, and eventually sacrificed the ninth to keep it. (Personally, whenever I get to the 13th tee, I look back down the tenth fairway, which runs away to the left, and know which hole I'd  rather be playing.)

The 17th is a good hole that requires anything from 3 iron to 9 iron, but you could argue that it's not improved by a lone moonah tree at the front left, just where you need to bounce it in if the hole is cut at the front of the green and playing downwind. This is one of the few places on the course where the running approach is more difficult than the flighted one. On so many other approaches there are fabulous angled berms and curving slopes that produce great semi-circular runs to the hole. On more than one green, the most effective way to get to a back left pin is to bounce it in front right, or vice-versa.


I could carry on for another thousand words on the merits of the Moonah course, but I'll stop and see if George or Ran or anybody else who has had a chance to play the course or the patience to read this far wants to differ or concur.

BTW, congratulations to you all on a fantastic site. I've learned a lot in the few months that I've been following these discussions, and I expect to learn a lot more yet.

Regards,


Anthony"

[Shane Gurnett]

Anthony

You mount a compelling argument in favour of the course, and given your experience in playing the course many more times than me, in a variety of conditions, I accede to your wisdom in that respect. Theres no harm in heaping praise where one feels it is due. Maybe more of its charm will be revealed to me the next time I play there (and hopefully more again the time after that).

However, I still have a fundamental issue with the courses' reliance on length as a primary attribute. As has been raised here many times, the absence of one or more genuine short par fours counts against it in my opinion. To me, that is what is missing from the "Moonah experience". The course just doesn't give any reprieve from the arduous slog of 420 yard par fours and 540 yard plus par fives. The last five holes are simply about survival as not one presents a genuine birdie opportunity. I think the finish would be much better if 14,16  or 18 played 50-60m shorter.

Perhaps the Moonah could be the first course in many years to move some tees forward in order to make it a better, more enjoyable challenge.

Finally, your comment about RM being not necessarily a better course cannot go through to the keeper. RM is miles in front the Moonah, and everything else in Melbourne for that matter. I think we need to give new courses like Moonah the time to prove themselves under a variety of conditions before we start making bullish comments like that.

So to sum up, I can see what your getting at, and I agree there are some good, and maybe one or two great holes on the layout. But is it a great course? For mine, not yet. But thats not to say it wont be better with a little time on its side.

Shane

[Brian Walshe]

Anthony,

Great to hear from you again.  I thought perhaps we had lost you.  Please drop me an email so we can catch up.

Shane,

The last five holes are long but in a north wind in particular there are birdies to be had.  Sunday there was northerly and 15 was driver, 3 iron and lob wedge from 40m.  16 was driver wedge, 17 was 7 iron and 18 was driver, wedge.  My single figure plaing partner hit much the same clubs.  That was off the blues, down wind but hardly howling.  If you can carry to the down slope on 16 then it plays a lot shorter than 420m.

Having said that into the wind it is very different and 16 can be near impossible to reach.  Not too different to 6 RM W into the wind where if you can't carry the traps you have to go left.  You don't get home in two from there either.

[Chris Kane]

Anthony,

You obviously know the course better than almost anyone who comes here, so I won't get into arguments about individual holes, or even the merits of the Moonah course in general.

I'm surprised by your assessment of RM West.  For me, 3-7 is the best stretch of holes I've ever seen, and 10 is the best short par 4 in Melbourne.  When I stand on any tee of the West Course on the main paddock, I think "what an unbelievable hole".  Every one is awesome, except perhaps 2.  I didn't get that feeling on the Moonah - I'd venture to say less than half took my breath away.

7W might just be the best short par 3 in Australia.  Filler? IMHO - No.  Afterthought? Yes, it was an afterthought, installed by Ivo Whitton becuase there were problems with the original Mackenzie hole.

Mike's assessment of Moonah as being in the top two was taken out of context: he said either prior to or during construction that with the land being so good, it ought to be in the top 2.  He had it at no.8 in Golf Australia.

[NicP]

Anthony,

             Fantastic post. I have to weigh in with Chris and Shane here. I have played the Moonah twice and allthough I enjoyed both days (maybe more the company!) I left the course far from inspired. Maybe I was expecting to much to soon, I don't know, but to me it's not a patch on RM or Royal Adelaide for that matter.

Your RM comments are interesting and are sure to provock a few arguments amongst many of the posters on GCA. I wont go into a long essay saying why RM West is better than anything in this country, all I will say is that my bedroom window looks down the 2nd East up to the green of 4 West, tee of 5 west, tee of 3 East and I can also see parts of 6 West, 1 East, 8 West and 9 West. In my opinion I don't think there could be a better view in the world - Moonah included.

[Anthony O Shea]

Brian - Send me an email at anthony_o'shea@mlc.com.au (I can't seem to register on this site or use my email address because of the apostrophe, my daughter calls it a 'catastrophe'). I was away much of last year and lost your address somewhere along the way, and I remember you saying something about changing jobs. How are you playing? I was hoping to bump into you down at the National in December, but it didn't happen. I should be around a bit more this year (fingers crossed), and I really have to get moving on the Cape Schanck house (both the architect and the wife are losing patience).

Shane G - I agree to a point about the length of the course, especially the imbalance between the turn and the finish. But Brian is also right about the finish being much, much easier in a northerly (though, as I've said above, I think it's probably a flaw in the routing that it's so much easier in one wind than another). And while you're right about there being no easy birdies in the last five holes, even I've birdied them all at various times. And at Christmas, I played with a father and son who halved both the 14th and 15th in birdies!

NicP - I envy your view. It sounds magnificent. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to defame RM (which is still my favourite course anywhere), I was really trying to elevate the Moonah by putting it in that company and making the point that RM is not above criticism or beyond reproach as a design. I agree it's the best course we have, and I think it's the finest course I've played, but it's not the best course imaginable.

I think there's a tendency to pay homage to RM (and much of Mackenzie's work or apocryphal work) almost automatically and perhaps to revere the course(s) uncritically. A friend of mine, who is a fine player, a very fair and dispassionate judge and much too courteous to publish his opinions here (I think Chris Kane might know who I mean), recently visited from Canada and played RM for the first time. He rated the RM experience (and he wasn't talking about the ccfad-esque "experience") behind a number of other A&NZ courses he played for the first time on the same trip, including Warakei, Victoria, NSW and The National (Old). I had the pleasure of playing with him at the latter two, and I wish now I'd taken him around the Moonah as well.

Chris - You think the 7th on the West is the best par 3 in Australia?! I think the hole a couple before it (5W) is a superior one shotter, and that would be my pick as the best short hole in the land. But I also think the 16th on the East, the 15th at Kingston Heath, the 7th at Victoria, the 11th at Yarra Yarra, the 11th at NSW, the 12th at St Michaels, the 7th at Newcastle, the 4th at Duntryleague (what?!), the 13th at Barwon Heads, and at least two of the par 3s at 13th Beach and at least that many more at Commonwealth are better than 7W. And that's without even thinking about it. But I guess there'd be no point having a discussion board if everything was indisputable.

Kind regards,

Anthony.

[Simon_H]

Anthony, great post.  Like your golfing companion, I too have the extreme good fortune to be a member of both RM and NGC .  I also live a par five from RM, yet often drive down to NGC as I enjoy the escapism that golf on the peninsula offers us city dwellers.

I am not going to dwell on the merits of which is a better design, suffice to say that four of the five courses I play on are exceptional.

Over the past 10 years of being a member of both, I have had plenty of time to contemplate which is better and why.  Brian Walshe can attest to just how much red wine I have sacrificed 'solving' the many architectural infractions committed by the various architects responsible for the five.

What I will say, is that there is a quality in some golf courses which enable it surpass the simple questions of how good is the design and layout.

I play golf to enjoy myself (Hang on! I play with Mr Walshe so maybe it is to torture myself after all!) and for that reason it is the National which I will choose to play over RM. Not because it is nescessarily a better course, but perhaps a better place to be. The serenity of the place, the magnificent views and the fresh air are unbeatable over traffic noise and car fumes. The Old Course in particular (incidentally why the hell we don't call it that, I don't know) is the pick, although the Moonah isn't far behind it just lacks some of scenery.

Don't get me wrong I still love the design of RM, but as Anthony has pointed out, the bit of land upon which the 3 NGC courses are built is exceptional, and in my humble opinion the location of that land is just as important.

Of course the other important piece in the jigsaw puzzle of a great golf course is how the designer made use of this land.  I suppose we were lucky because 2 out of 3 ain't bad. In both Norman/Harrisons and Trent Jones jnr's courses you are continually hit smack between the eyes with dramtic visuals everywhere you look.  The tee shots on holes like 2,3,9,12,15, & 16 old are visually emphatic in many different ways.  Normans course as well has some beauties like 3,4,8,10,14, & 16, while they don't have the views of the old course they do make you sit up and pay attention with use of dunes, ridges and bunkering.  This for me is part of the wow factor of why I enjoy being there, that said the Ocean is part of this complex and I would prefer having my toe nails removed to playing 18 holes there.

Similarly NSW at La Perouse and Pebble Beach in California are blessed with that same dramatic impact which the designers made stunning use of. For me this is part of what makes a golf course great, sometimes it's not about that great short par 4 or a brilliant par 3, it's about what happens when you step up onto that tee at 2 on the old course and say WOW!

[Justin_Ryan]

Mr H
I have occasionally thought of offloading or leasing my membership, but these thoughts are usually forgotten when I get to the current 2nd on the Old course.  I can't say that I am similarly moved by the Moonah though, as fine a golf course that it is.  I would guess though that your enjoyment of the courses would be tempered somewhat by continually searching in the long stuff for Mr Walshe's ball .

I have to disagree about being lucky that two out of three ain't bad.  As others have already pointed out, this is awesome land on which to build golf courses.  It would take a great deal of skill to build a course on this land that isn't amongst the top 20 in Australia at the very least, but somehow it has been managed, to the detriment of the club and members.  I am hoping that this failure will give added impetus to the proposed new courses (and practice fairway). I actually remain hopeful that Moonah will be pushed out of (or nearly out) the top ten over the next few years, replaced by these two new courses.


Anthony
I think that a comparison of the Moonah with anything else on the Sandbelt may have been more appropriate, but it really doesn't touch RM.  The 5th and 8th on the Moonah are good par threes, but nothing great, whilst I think 13 is awful and 17 average.  They certainly don't stack up with what is at RM.  I have to agree with Chris Kane about RMW 10.  This is the best short par four in Melbourne, and it is a shame that the only short par four on the Moonah (9th) was the result of accident, and it shows.  The Moonah is obviously strong in the area of long par fours and fives, some of which are fantastic looking holes, but how much punishment does one need to subject oneself to, particularly in the common high winds.

Comparing apples with apples, we have seen some dross built over the past five years, and Moonah is easily better than nearly all of these, including Ocean, Moonah Links, Heritage, Sanctuary Lakes et al.  I have to admit though that I found 13th Beach more interesting and varied, less favorable to long hitters and much more fun than Moonah.  It was also refreshing to come across a new course where the architect actually bothered to take the time to find and build interesting short par fours and an outstanding very short (118 metres) par three. For mine this is the best way too neuter the increasing length in the game, whilst at the same time ensuring that everyone else is still able to compete.

[Brian Walshe]

Suffice to say I know of at least two gentlemen facing a long walk back from Cape Schanck in the near future.

Anthony raises an interesting point about RM W and at the risk of further endangering my chances at playing Ranfurlie can I raise a couple of questions;

1.  Are the moguls short and left on one original or added later?
2.  As much as the Moonah is criticised for having no great short par 4 can you also criticise RM W for not having a great 3 shot par 5?  Yep is has some awesome 4.5's but no real three shot hole.  Most low markers would be playing little more than mid irons into all of the 5's.
3.  Are 14 and 15 up to the standard of the rest of the course?  I'd be interested in some history here.  14 has always seemed just a little different around the green to me.  I can't put my finger on why but I'm curious if it is "original".

Before I get stoned for blasphemy by everyone from Ran down, I still think it’s the best course I’ve played and it has some of the greatest holes you could ever see.  I just wonder if we don’t turn a blind eye to some of the lesser elements.

Brian

[Simon_H]

Brian, in recent Paul Daleys recent 'Sandbelt' book it was pointed out that the four holes 'accross the road' on RM west were part of the original layout prior to Mackenzie's design.  With regard to the 15th hole (originally the 4th hole of the original course at the site) there is a quote attributed to the great man which says 'I'll leave that more or less as it is, to show people how bad the old design was.'  So certainly much of that side owes something to the original layout, maybe that is why you feel 'odd' on 14th green.

The original layout was done away with, when 60 acres of land was sold off in 1925.  The decision was made to seek expert advice "at no limit to cost".  The new course opened for play in 1931.

Interestingly, given current technological improvements and the discussions caused by such.  The biggest single golfing issue at the time was the advent of the steel shaft.  Legalised for championship play in the USA in 1924, the R&A and thus RM did not lift it's ban on steel until 1929.  So it would be fair to say that Mackenzie penned a design in the late 20's which had to make allowances for the future given that club design was undergoing such a huge transformation.  This may well help to explain why his designs have stood the test of time as well as they have, because even 85 years ago golf was changing dramatically.

[Chris Kane]

Brian:
Your point on the lack on a three shot par-5 on RM West is a valid criticism: but in my eyes that's the only deficiency in what is otherwise a stupendous (I'm running out of adjectives!) course.

I don't know the holes from 13-16 very well at all - so I won't comment on them - I've only visited that part of the property once, and only spent about 10 minutes there before returning to the main paddock.

Anthony:
I said 7W might be the best short par-3 in Australia.  I agree with you that 5W is a superior hole, but I'd classify that as a medium length one-shotter.  7W might not be the best of its kind in the land, but surely it's right up there?

Yes I do know who you mean - he sent me his comments when he returned home to Canada.  I suppose we're all looking for different things - he told me he didn't like the blind shots too much.

Simon:
Thanks for your comments, as I'd assume you know all five courses as a group as well as anyone here.

Also, would you be able to tell us what the plans are regarding the clubhouse?  There has been a fair amount of speculation, but I'm still confused as to what the plans are.  I saw a planning notice on the gate during the Heineken, but it wasn't conclusive.

[David_Elvins]

Anthony,

The 4th at Duntryleague is one of Australia's great Par 3s?  What?!

Please explain.

[Chris Kane]

Anthony,

Any chance of posting a picture of this 4th hole at Duntryleague?  

[Anthony O Shea]

Chris - I do have a photo of the fourth at Duntryleague here somewhere. My filing leaves a bit to be desired, but if I can find it I’ll scan it and post it.

David – The fourth at Duntryleague doesn’t qualify as a ‘short’ par 3 (I overlooked that pre-requisite in Chris’ earlier post) but it’s a great short hole nonetheless. It’s about 180 metres, slightly uphill to a double plateau green that’s probably 3 clubs extra from front to back. The slightly offset cross bunkering about 20 metres short of the green toys with your depth perception, especially when you remember that coming back from beyond the built-up back plateau is impossible, and leaves just enough room for an accurate short hitter to run the ball onto the green, or for a very short hitter to lay up. It’s just one of four ripper par 3s at D-League, and now that I think about it, the 7th (shorter and downhill to a green that angles left to right) or the 11th (medium length, and as good a flat par 3 as I’ve played).

To my mind, Duntryleague is the closest thing to a genuine hidden gem in Australian golf, despite its current disguise as an overgrown botanical garden. For the uninitiated, Duntryleague is the home of the Orange Golf Club in a town called Orange (famous for its apples!) in central-western New South Wales. The design is an Eric Apperley original that’s a joy to play. (Apperley is the man behind Newcastle GC and the resurrection of NSW GC after WWII).

There are a couple of classic half-par or bogey holes (as I think they’re described on the club’s old scorecards – though I might be thinking of Newcastle and/or Barwon Heads here), including the sweeping downhill 460 yard par 4 first, and the subtly contoured slightly double-bending short par 5 second of about the same length, where ideally you have to shape it right-to-left off the tee and left-to-right off the fairway if you want to get home in two.

There are also a couple of great short par 4s to pimple greens that you really don’t want to be playing a half-wedge to, a good mix of push-up and fall-away greens, as well as a few that lie very low on the land and suggest a running approach over the blue-couch carpet, plus a few holes near the end (esp. 15 and 16, again a longish par 4 followed by a short par 5) that lie as well over the land as anything on the Sand Belt. The par 5 16th, which runs up and over several mighty corrugations, is reminiscent of the 10th at Newcastle.

Duntryleague is rarely mentioned these days in any discussion of Australia’s great courses, but it wasn’t always so. There’s a picture in the bar of Arnold Palmer playing the course in the early 60s, so someone convinced him it was worth the four-hour drive over the mountains from Sydney. Duntryleague has also had a long association with NSW GC, whose members think it’s worth leaving LaPer for a while every year to play.

As I said, the course is the home of Orange Golf Club, but it’s also open to visitors, and it will cost you something like $10 AUD (or $5 US) for a round, and about half that (which is close to nothing) if you stay overnight in the over-painted, early-Victorian mansion on the grounds.

I used to make the trip regularly, but I haven’t been back for a few years now, but I’d say it’s the best golf west of the Great Dividing Range in NSW. But speaking of LaPer, it’s a spectacular day here in Sydney, and I’m about to go and make the most of it at St Michael’s.

Anthony.

[Brian Walshe]

A little group of GCA'ers played the Moonah on Saturday in a medal round from the black tees.  Shane I'll admit to 16 being over the top from back there.  Not even Long Paul Daley and the wonder driver could get it to the plateau and it was down wind.  I think perhaps moving the blacks to the blue tee and the blue to the next tee forward would improve things a lot.  

And Justin I decided not to mention your Excellent Adventure on 18. Suffice to say I now understand why you want to play mostly up top  

[Justin_Ryan]

Yeah thanks Brian, you're a model of restraint.  I never really liked that 18th hole before, and I like it even less now, although it would be vastly improved if they could chop down a moonah tree or two, particularly on the right hand side of the fairway.  It is certainly stretching it a bit to call it the best finishing hole in Austalian golf, as I noticed it described on another thread.  It's not even close to being one of the best holes on the course.

You are certainly right about Paul Daley and his wonder driver.  If the person who sent it to him reads this site, could you please send me one as well.

[Chris Kane]

Was the driver in question the same one used at Commonwealth in January?

Who's willing to bet with me that the club doesn't conform to the rules, aka as "hot"?

[Justin_Ryan]

Chris
It is the same driver, and combined with the long putter, it leads me to question Paul's commitment to the traditions and spirit of the game.  

[Paul Daley]

Those of us over 40 yrs, with perhaps slightly greying temples will recall the immortal words by John Lennon off his Walls & Bridges Album: "Whatever gets you through the night, is alright, is alright, its your money or your life, its all right ..."

Both gadgets - Driver and Broom, were given as gifts; one doesn't want to risk offence and refuse.

Re the driver: I do know it is legal, because I checked with the MD of Tour Edge, who sent it as a token of his appreciation for the Sandbelt book. I nearly fainted upon first sighting; its shaft is bright yellow, with a clubhead bigger than John Holme's appendage, or at least in his prime before he died of HIV.

I am resisting the urge (slightly tongue in cheek) of commenting that ... "It's the Indian, not the arrow!"    

[Chris Kane]

Paul,

That JakaB style comment hits the mark perfectly.  Any idea what it measures in cubic centimetres? (the clubhead, not the appendage of the late Mr.Holmes!)

I have no problem with you using a wonder driver, but the broomstick putter is just not cricket.

[Paul Daley]

The broom is an interesting issue: it gives you nothing, takes you no-where.

I'm fairly new to it, seven years only, but in that short time, I've only ever once played with another golfer who has employed its use. This tells me that there can be no advantage, and that it probably is a disadvantage.

These things generally find their own water level. Given golfers insatiable desire to knock off a shot or two, if the broom worked, or had any mysterious powers, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be ordering one.

Another indicator of their lack of popularity, is the fact that manufacturers offer virtually no variety. You take what you find in a rusty old bin, or off the showroom floor.

Playing in a wind, the broom is near impossible to control. It simply waves all over the joint. The law makers know this, and reason that if anyone is silly enough to use one, "let em go".