There has been a good amount happening in Sydney in recent times and some exciting stuff planned into the future.
RECENT
Bob Harrison and Scott Champion built 6-7 new holes for Brighton Lakes GC in south west Sydney in some bushland across the highway from the rest of the golf course.
The course used to be called New Brighton GC until a deal whereby a handful of holes were taken for residential development.
I’m keen to see their from-scratch work across the highway and also their tweaks to the remaining holes from the original course.
UNDERWAY
Harley Kruse has been undertaking a renovation of Killara GC that has included removing a few million trees from what used to be one of the narrowest courses you could imagine. The land is good and the old course fell monumentally short of what it should have been. I have heard a lot of really good things about the work Harley has done.
UPCOMING
Gil Hanse’s total redesign of Royal Sydney GC is so exciting. The course is somewhat limited by its location (boundary issues) and the flat ground away from the edges, but it’s great soil and a sufficient budget and the best land could be so much more well used.
As it stands, you’ve played across all the good land by the 8th hole. Gil’s plan splits that across both nines.
Also, the scale of Renaissance Design’s work at NSWGC is yet to be determined, but the idea of what they can achieve putting the finishing touches on an already World Top 50 course, and reversing some poor recent work by Greg Norman, is pretty damn exciting.