At Long Last, St. Andrews Beach

[Paul_Daley]

TD: congrats on the St. Andrews Beach news, and you must be really excited about the materialisation of Kidnappers. Along with Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania, your firm has won contracts amidst three substantially differing landforms, in spite of all three being in the coastal zone. Variety being the spice of life, you guys must be having a ball.

Many of us are suckers for a good, short par-4: can't speak for Kidnappers but am delighted to note the inclusion of the feature in the Australian designs. St. Andrews Beach 16th (can't recall if Gunamatta or West) with its 3-4 options will surely get the tongues waggling, and the Barnbougle ones are beauties too.

[Mark_Huxford]

Some stories doing the rounds this week.

Cape course could host Open
http://tinyurl.com/wqwp

New course an option for Open
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2739329a1823,00.html

Lawyer slams Cape Kidnappers plan
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2739367a10,00.html

US billionaire's tunnel vision meets resistance
http://tinyurl.com/wrgi

Maori being lured by golf cash, says historian
http://tinyurl.com/wrh7

[tonyt]

Hey Mark,

I love the comment in the first article about the Open "rarely" held outside Auckland in the past 20 years. About five or six of them have been held at Paraparaumu Beach, making it the most frequent venue of the past 20 odd years. Paraparaumu must be considered by the author as a distant outer suburb of Auckland, since it is a mere 45 minutes by plane, just north of Wellington  

[Mark_Huxford]

Yeah that guy didn't know what he was talking about Tony. Not a good start Hawkes Bay.  

By my count the Open has been held in Auckland eight times in the last twenty years, once in Christchurch, once in Wellington, nine times at Paraparam with no championship in 1990 because of a change of dates.

This feasibility study is a laugh. If Mr. Robertson wants the Open give it to him I say. It's the only way the tournament is going to get some credibility back after the Tiger debacle and years at forgettable Auckland courses like The Grange. The Aussies have habitually treated it like a poor cousin and given it shitty dates in January when Nobilo, Waite, Long, Perks, Tataurangi and our other top players are playing somewhere else. Next year there's even a British Open qualifier at Kingston Heath on the Monday morning after the tournament!

What they should do is give it to Napier for three years and see if the venue can attract a quality field in years two and three. It would look a lot better on TV than The Grange I know that much.

BTW, I reckon the subterranean sunset lounge would have been a sight to see!