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a temple to worship
Port Douglas has become a tourist mecca, with holidaymakers flocking to its various attractions. And one of the best places to stay is the Sea Temple Resort & Spa, with five-star luxury and golf thrown in. By Jon Underwood.
Ten steps. That’s all it took. Not nine or eleven. Just ten steps to get from my bedroom into one of the largest resort pools in the Southern Hemisphere. All 3,000 square metres of it. Any closer and I could’ve gone to bed in a wetsuit.
This massive expanse of water is the centrepiece of the Sea Temple Resort & Spa in Port Douglas, a four-hectare oasis of tropical tranquillity just an hour’s drive north of Cairns. It’s been open for just four years but has quickly become the leading five-star resort in the area, a luxurious gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest.
It’s also the place to stay if you fancy a round on a layout billed as one of the first tropical links-style courses in the world. While I was slightly dubious about this claim, there’s no doubting the Sea Temple Golf Club has the ‘links-look’, with plenty of humps, hollows, grassy dunes and those nasty little pot bunkers in the middle of the fairway that always seem so unfair.
Designed by Thomson Wolveridge and Perrett, the course opened for business in 2000 on a 19-hectare site that used to be sugar cane fields and orchards (Mike Wolveridge, who named the holes, still has a holiday house adjacent to the eighth, appropriately called The Patriarch.)
Just three years later it was chosen as the venue for the Nomura Cup (the Asia-Pacific Championship). Current tour pros James Nitties and Nick Flanagan were part of an Australian amateur team that won the cup by a massive 18-shots. Nitties still holds the course record of 68.
Over the years the Sea Temple has undergone subtle changes to improve it’s playability but has lost none of its charm or the original links-style. Indeed last year some 21,500 rounds were played here, 35-per-cent by visitors staying at the neighbouring resort.
Given its location, keeping the course in good condition is no mean feat. Summer monsoons routinely deliver more than 30cms of rain a day, while winter droughts often bring less than 2cms for the season. This year they’ve already had 1.85m of rain (they had 1.81m for all of 2009).
It’s a difficult task for Course Superintendent Brett Morris, but he’s clearly doing it well because in February, the course won a prestigious Environmental Leaders in Golf Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and US Golf Digest.
“For 130 dollars a round, people want value for money so we always try and make sure we can provide the best possible product every day of the week,” commented Morris.
At just 6,135-metres off the blue tees and only 5,716 from the whites, Sea Temple isn’t overly long. Its major defences lie in the clever positioning of bunkers (including those damned pots) in and around the fairway landing zones and its narrow, raised, sloping greens.
The first three are amiable enough with a testing dogleg, a tricky driving hole and then a pretty par three. It’s only when you stand on the fourth that things start to get serious. Stroke index one and from the back tees a 425-metre par-4, it’s called Tribulation but is more of a trial, needing two pure, straight blows with driver and rescue wood/long iron to find the small, sloping green, protected on both sides by water, particularly the hidden stretch on the right.
And there are other things hiding in the water, as well.
Keep an eye out on holes 9-13 for the four resident crocodiles. Golf Club Manager Peter Douglas (no relation to Port) cheerfully tells me that the biggest is “only” 2.6m long.
Dangerous reptiles not-withstanding, the 10th is the most scenic driving hole on the course, with Black Mountain in the distance and colourful flora on both sides. And the double green it shares with 15 in an homage to St Andrews is a nice touch.
Make sure you check out the massive eagle’s nest to the left of the par-three 11th. But don’t forget the crocodile-inhabited pond up by the green. It’s called Pulpit, but if go left, you haven’t got a prayer.
Like most courses designed by TWP, the closing holes are the most challenging and the 367-metre, par-4 18th is the toughest driving hole of the day. There’s water left and right and bunkers on the edges and in the middle of the fairway. Finding the cut stuff here could be more luck than judgement.
Sadly I can’t tell you too much about the greens as they’d just done maintenance to get the course ready for peak season (July to Oct). But they do have a story to tell.
“We had a lot of trouble with the greens drowning in the wet season and burning in summer. So we’ve used a new type of grass called Novotek that doesn’t flood or burn,” explains Douglas.
There’s two basic ways to play Sea Temple. Blaze away off every tee and hope for the best, or think about ball placement. High handicappers will love the challenge; low handicappers will enjoy the opportunity to sharpen their short game and score well.
But for me, perhaps the best reason to play here is to feast your eyes. Whether it’s the Great Dividing Range, which provides such a dramatic backdrop, or the beautifully manicured garden beds stuffed full of frangipanis, crotons, mandurahs, spider lilys, lomandras and cordylines, Sea Temple is a visual delight.
It’s just a two-minute drive back to the Balinese-themed resort, which has 160 studio spa rooms, apartments and villas in a truly impressive 14 different permutations. All are stylish, spacious and comfortable, with the apartments providing fully furnished and equipped kitchens and laundry facilities. Top of the range is the 10 private, 3 bedroom beachfront villas with their own plunge pool on their private terrace and a spa in the bedroom.
Now if the words ‘cooking’ and ‘holiday’ aren’t compatible in your book, the restaurant provides breakfast, lunch and dinner with a good selection of dishes. The lunch menu features favourites like burgers (from $19.50) to tagliatelline pasta ($27), while dinner choices include eye fillet of beef wrapped in prosciutto ($36).
Ever the adventurer, I tried the crocodile spring rolls with ginger, garlic, sweet peppers and onion. To me, it tasted like chicken (I wonder if crocodiles think the same of us?).
By far the best thing on the menu was the Divine Chocolate ($18). I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you exactly what it is but it’s runny, it’s crunchy, its tangy, it’s cold and it’s gooey.
Popular with families, honeymooners, corporate groups and couples, the resort also has a pool bar, gym and the Mii Spa, where I put my body in the vice-like hands of Kellie.
The interior was luxurious, comfortable and so soothing that you could fall asleep in the reception area. I opted for the hour-long Mii Spa Massage ($145) and came away a new man.
As hotel manager Andrew McSweeney put it so succinctly: “The great thing about this resort is you can do as much or as little as you want.”
at a glance
Getting there: Virgin Blue, Qantas and Jetstar all fly to Cairns.
www.virginblue.com.au or phone 13 67 89.
www.qantas.com.au or phone 13 13 13
www.jetstar.com or phone 13 15 38.
Sea Temple Port Douglas is about an hour’s drive north of Cairns.
Green fees: $AU130 for 18 holes, $AU88 for nine. Twilight from 3pm, $AU88. Tee times from 6.30am to 4pm daily (closed Christmas Day). All green fees include cart.
Accommodation: 194 guestrooms, including Studio Spa Rooms, fully contained luxury two and three-bedroom apartments and three bedroom, beachfront villas with exclusive private terrace and plunge pool.
Stay & Play package: 3 nights in a Studio Spa Room, full daily breakfast, 18 holes of golf for two, dinner for two in Aqua Restaurant. Low Season (1 April - 30 June & 1 Nov - 22 Dec & 11 Jan - 31 Mar) $AU1,240. High Season (1 Jul - 31 Oct & 23 Dec - 10 Jan) $AU1,360.
Things to do: The Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rainforest and Mossman Gorge, Cape Tribulation, Atherton Tablelands, wildlife sanctuaries, Hartley’s Crocodile Farm, Cairns Tropical Zoo, explore Port Douglas or visit Port Douglas markets.
Information: Call + 61 7 4084 3500
or Free Call 1800 833 762
www.seatempleresorts.com
www.seatemplegolf.com.au
www.queenslandholidays.com.au
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