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swing in the sunshine
Twenty years ago, when the Hyatt Regency Coolum became the Sunshine Coast’s first golf resort, few could have known or predicted that, by 2010, the region would rival the Gold Coast as Queensland’s premier play-and-stay destination.
After all, back then in 1989/90, Gold Coast tourism was booming. Sanctuary Cove and Palm Meadows were established premier golf destinations in their own right, Royal Pines was about to open, Hope Island was on the drawing board and there were several quality public access courses north and south of the Tweed.
As for visitor numbers there was – as is still the case – a huge margin in the Gold Coast’s favour. But like the little engine that could, the Sunshine Coast has clawed its way up and today boasts four outstanding play-and-stay golf resorts in a 60-kilometre stretch between Caloundra and Noosa, plus another on Bribie Island.
Come with us on a journey to the golfing highlights of this sub-tropical golfing and holiday paradise.
Hyatt Regency Coolum
aura plus
Even before you step on to the first tee of the Hyatt Regency Coolum’s championship course, you know that this is a layout of real substance, even awe.
For starters, any course boasting Robert Trent Jones Jnr’s design skills is up there with the best; one about to host its eighth consecutive Australian PGA championship is no slouch; and being so immaculately groomed makes you wonder whether you should even take a divot.
But have no fears, for while these are fairways on which many recent greats of Australian and international golf have trod, and greens where big money has been won and lost, it is also a course for everyone prepared to take on the challenge of playing the same holes as those we wish we could emulate.
Think about that. How does the average club golfer get a game at Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Huntingdale, New South Wales, The Australian or Royal Sydney? With difficulty. To be sure, there are few opportunities to play a current championship layout in our own backyard, and tantalisingly, from later this year, to experience Coolum’s new layout.
Six new holes – to be the first six on the new card – will be open to hotel guests, and occasional public players, as soon as the 2009 Australian PGA (from Dec 10-13) is over. These replacements for beachside holes, which are being scrapped for a new residential development and were designed by Robert Trent Jones Jnr when the course was first planned, add difficulty and character to an already impressive course.
The new first hole, in particular, a par-5 that funnels into a narrow landing area beside a pond protecting the green, will sort out the sheep from the goats – whatever the competition. It may well become Index 1 on the card. If not, then close to it.
The second, a beautiful par-3, has two tees some 30 metres apart, enabling the hole to be played short and tight or long and straight. And so on – right around hills and valleys, lakes and ponds, trees and rough, sometimes with Mt Coolum towering above and occasionally with kangaroos watching attentitively, to perhaps the best-known finishing hole in Australia.
Ah yes, Coolum’s 18th, a stunning 390-metre par-4, currently Index 1, that skirts water on both sides and turns left to a dangerous green at the water’s edge; the hole where Nick O’Hern holed out from a greenside bunker to win the 2006 Australian PGA on the fourth playoff hole against Peter Lonard, and where several titles of Australia’s oldest professional golf tournament have been decided.
“This is a thinker’s course,” says Coolum’s teaching pro, Greg Cusack. “It doesn’t really reward the long hitter, and many second shots have to be played from downslopes. It’s not long [6263 metres from the championship tees], but is penal for the wayward ball.”
While the Hyatt Regency is a mecca for serious golfers, it’s also the Sunshine Coast’s premier all-inclusive resort. Its day spa with 19 treatment rooms, gymnasium, sauna, pilates and beauty rooms is one of the largest and best equipped in Australia.
Two kilometres of beachfront with a beach club, eight championship tennis courts, nine swimming pools, an appealing village square with restaurants and shops, 324 suites and villas, a children’s centre, and a new golf teaching academy make this a destination in its own right.
By 2011, when the new residential development is completed, there will be 500 dwellings in a substantial, but non-intrusive complex. Spread over 150 hectares of rainforest and native bushland, this is a resort to explore and relax and one where you never feel hemmed in.
Hyatt Regency Coolum: The resort is 3km south of Coolum and 10km north of Sunshine Coast airport on David Low Way.
Accommodation: Hotel king rooms from $A240/night; two-bedroom villas from $A400/night; two-storey Ambassador duplex villas from $A705/night (all incl. breakfast).
Stay-and-play packages from $A390/night for two incl. unlimited golf and breakfast.
Green Fees: $A110 for hotel guests; public can play in the club’s competition on Tue, Thur and Sat.
Contact: Phone 1800 266 586
www.coolum.regency.hyatt.com
noosa springs
casual elegance
It’s hard to believe that 12 years ago the 103 hectares of land on which Noosa Springs Golf & Spa Resort now stands were used for market gardens, cattle and horse grazing. Their transformation into a stunning $400 million resort with an outstanding golf course is due to the foresight and design skills of owners Alan and Beth Starkey and their son, Philip.
Alan, an architect who designed the course and created the master plan, searched up and down the coast for a suitable location before buying the land in 1997. The resort celebrated its 10th anniversary in May, and is still owned by the Starkey family. Noosa Springs employs 115 people, attracts visitors from near and far, and provides a good test of golf on its 6189-metre, par-72 layout.
“Casual elegance,” is how the resort’s manager, Mark Brady (pictured below), describes the complex that comprises the golf course, clubhouse with restaurant, tennis courts, spa and fitness centre, conference centre and 272-home residential community. “We want people to feel comfortable and not be intimidated or feel out of place, while maintaining a level of quality.”
This is certainly achieved. The setting is delightful, with panoramic views from the clubhouse over Lake Weyba, Mediterranean architectural styling and quality homes around the golf course. Some home owners live interstate, while others are permanent, and rentals of more than a month are permitted. Twenty-seven new on-course home sites are about to be marketed.
The golf club has 300 members. Guests as well as visitors are welcome on the course and can play in regular competitions if they are GolfLink members. At $A120 including cart, it represents good value.
There’s nothing especially frightening about the course, but with water on 12 of the 18 holes and tree-lined fairways elsewhere, you have to be on target. The signature hole is probably the par-4 fifth, a short 329-metre dogleg that requires two precise shots into a sloping green by the edge of a lake that protects the entire right side.
This hole is set up beautifully by two preceding tests: the 481-metre par-5 third with water all down the left side and trees on the right, and the very attractive 141-metre par-3 fourth which requires a draw (or a dangerous cut) into a waterside green.
After a game, Noosa Springs’ spa and fitness centre is a must. With hydrotherapy and flotation pools, a steam room, infrared saunas and relaxation lounges, the $A8 million facility ranks equally with any at five-star resorts.
Noosa Springs Golf & Spa Resort: The resort is 3km south of Noosa Heads and 25km north of Sunshine Coast airport.
Accommodation: Two nights stay and play package in two-bedroom apartment with two rounds of golf, golf cart, full breakfast, use of fitness centre, $A319/person twin share (five nights $A698/person with four rounds of golf); stay and play plus spa with one round of golf and one massage treatment (in total), $A332/person.
Green Fees: $A120 with cart. Noosa Springs participates in the four-course Sunshine Coast golf pass (with Club Pelican, Twin Waters and Pacific Harbour) at $A299/person for one round on each course.
Contact: Phone (07) 5440 3333
www.noosasprings.com.au
TWIN WATERS
the people’s choice
Steve Hutchison reckons he has the best golf job in the country: manager of one of the most popular play-and-stay courses in Queensland, as well as being director of its golf operations, club president and captain. There’s no committee or board breathing down his neck and he has the freedom to run Twin Waters Golf Club the way he believes is best.
A former Australasian Tour player and winner of the New Caledonia Open, Steve turned pro in 1987, played competitively for a decade and subsequently became head pro at New Zealand’s Gulf Harbour Country Club, which, during his tenure, hosted both the 2000 and 2001 World Cup of Golf.
After arriving back in Queensland, and wanting to expand his horizons into management, he found himself in the right place at the right time, with the right credentials. “You’re more likely to find me in the office these days than on the course, or teaching,” he explains, a legacy of the club’s purchase in 2005 from its developer, Lend Lease, by Japanese surgeon and keen golfer, Dr Tsutomu Yamaji.
The sale ended a 15-year association with Novotel hotels, although the course and the Novotel Twin Waters Resort, as well as the newer adjacent Grand Mercure apartments, are continuing to co-operate closely.
The biggest change in the past several years has been the course’s presentation, which had attracted criticism in the last few years of Novotel’s management. Returning Twin Waters to the revered place it once held became the new owner’s – and Steve Hutchison’s – major priority.
Certainly, the Peter Thomson-Mike Wolveridge layout has everything a great course needs in terms of design and location. Nestled virtually adjacent to Sunshine Coast airport and a few hundred metres from Mudjimba Beach, its access is unparalleled for interstate visitors arriving by air, or car.
In July, after the wettest winter on the Sunshine Coast for many years, it was apparent that deficiencies that may have existed previously have long been overcome. Indeed, Twin Waters is back to the track that attracted over 50,000 rounds a year in the late 1990s.
Steve Hutchison says about 40,000 rounds a year – about 800 a week – are currently being played, more a sign of a weaker economy than reduced appeal. Nevertheless, it’s necessary to make an advance booking to get on the course, but not enough to make it too crowded.
Twin Waters is a true people’s course, an easy and pleasant walk, being relatively flat, with attractive ponds and thick stands of paperbarks. One of the nice touches is that, like many courses in Scotland and England, the holes are named. The 379-metre par-4 eighth, for example, is the Road hole, complete with a long deep bunker strategically located before the green to catch longer drives to the right. Not surprisingly, it’s ranked as Index 1.
A favourite of many is the 15-metre par-3 seventh, called Pulpit. Just 137 metres from the “social” tees, it’s a hole that sometimes requires a flirtation with the water, but rewards a good shot. But this isn’t typical. One big plus about Twin Waters is that, despite eight holes alongside water, hitting over the wet stuff can be avoided. A good way to ensure a quick and stress-free round!
Twin Waters Golf Club: Twin Waters is located on Ocean Drive, Mudjimba Beach, off David Low Way, which leads to/from Sunshine Coast airport.
Accommodation: one night in resort room (garden view) at Novotel Twin Waters Resort, with full buffet breakfast for two adults and up to two children plus 18 holes at Twin Waters for two and share of golf cart from $A295/room/night.
Green fees: $A75/person plus $A34 for optional cart. Twin Waters participates in the four-course Sunshine Coast golf pass (with Club Pelican, Noosa Springs and Pacific Harbour) at $A299/person for one round on each course.
Contact: Twin Waters Resort, phone 1800 072 277 www.twinwatersresort.com.au
Twin Waters Golf Club, phone (07) 5457 2444 www.twinwatersgolfclub.com.au
CLUB PELICAN
the shark’s
attack
Greg Norman has more than a special interest in the Club Pelican golf course at Pelican Waters near Caloundra. The Shark not only designed the course, but his parents live beside one of the canals that snake their way around the property. His dad, Merv, is a member, and his only complaint is that HE (as opposed to his ball) is finding it increasingly difficult getting out of the bunkers.
Greg is occasionally seen on the course or on the range, probably inwardly smiling about the classic layout he created in a former swamp. This is as good a test of golf as can be found, being currently ranked 16th of Australia’s top 100 courses by The Golf Course Guide.
This itself speaks volumes about a layout that isn’t so much frightening for the average golfer as it is enticing. But beware, there are hidden dangers everywhere! Like marsh areas that swallow your ball instantly, sloping fairways that seem to feed the water (presumably without sharks), big long and sometimes deep bunkers, and thick paperbark forests that shelter kangaroos and other native animals.
Greg Norman says the course typifies his philosophy about golf course design: “Anyone can build the hardest course in the world, or the most boring. But to finish playing a course like Club Pelican and remember each shot of the 18 holes is what great design is all about.”
Yes, Greg, but maybe we don’t WANT to remember every shot.
Club Pelican, measuring 6359 metres off the black tees and a touch under 6000 metres off the blues, certainly has its share of memorable holes. It’s hard to go past the final three: the long par-5 16th that lies deep in the woods, where a tight green is protected by a natural bunker in which trees have been left to add to its difficulty; the beautiful dog-leg 383-metre 17th which requires a carefully placed tee-shot to the corner if you are to hit the green in two; and, just to remind you that Greg Norman designed the course, the toughest hole on the layout, the 420-metre par-4 18th where, to most mortals, bogey is par.
The front nine, with enough water to remind you that this is, after all, a canal-side course, doesn’t at all prepare you for the quite different, wooded back nine. It makes the experience all the more interesting.
“It’s a course with real variety and character,” says Club Pelican’s teaching pro, Kieran McLaughlin, a gregarious Irishman who took up his appointment in late 2007, soon after migrating to warmer climes. “If this course was in Europe or Ireland, people would be queuing up to get on to it. The layout and design is one of the best I’ve played.”
Kieran says generous fairways and greens make it eminently playable for all levels of golfers. “But you can’t miss any green right, left or long – the only safety is being short.”
The adjacent Crowne Plaza hotel makes Club Pelican an attractive option for the play-and-stay and conference markets. Corporate sales manager, David Murden, says there is a corporate event most weeks and, with 300 club members, there’s a regular playing clientele.
Club Pelican: Club Pelican is located at Pelican Waters, 5km south
of Caloundra.
Accommodation: one night at Crowne Plaza Pelican Waters with full buffet breakfast for two and two rounds of golf with cart from $A265/room/night. Phone 1800 213 412
Green fees: $A110/person incl cart. Preferred players club membership ($A99/year) gives 25 percent discount on green fees and other benefits. Club Pelican participates in the four-course Sunshine Coast golf pass (with Noosa Springs, Twin Waters and Pacific Harbour) at $A299/person for one round on each course.
Contact: Phone (07) 5437 5000 www.clubpelican.com.au
KABI
organic golf
It may not yet be on the radar of travelling golfers or even those living on the Sunshine Coast, but a delightful diversion from high-priced, groomed resort courses can be found in the Sunshine Coast hinterland near the village of Boreen Point.
Kabi, the name of the local indigenous tribe, bills itself as the world’s first – and perhaps only – organic golf course. Owned by Rena Merchant, co-founder of the Billabong surfwear brand with her then husband, Gordon, it uses no chemicals and is certified organic by the Biological Farmers of Australia.
With 18 par-3 holes, three par-4s and four par-5s in a 25-hole layout, Kabi is rated by the Australian PGA as par-63 when played as an 18-hole composite course. Its small but growing band of 60 members enjoys a regular Saturday competition and a “Thirsty Thursday” event each week, to both of which visitors are welcome.
A self-described “old hippie from way back”, Rena Merchant opened the course in 2001 on the orchard and grazing property she owns about 30 kilometres from Noosa. While she says it started as “a bit of fun”, it is now a serious commercial endeavour.
Several of the par-3 holes on the front nine are classics, notably the eighth and ninth, both of which require a delicately placed tee shot around, or over, large native eucalypts that block direct access to the green.
Kabi’s “orchard nine” is literally played through the property’s citrus orchard. In season, you can always find a juicy orange for refreshment.
Meals are served in Kabi’s historic clubhouse, a restored historic 1898 cottage that was relocated to the property from Noosaville. The produce comes from the property as well as from Rena Merchant’s organic farm, Trickle Creek, which produces organic beef and eggs.
Rena says Kabi demonstrates that recreation, food production and a wildlife sanctuary can be combined in one entity.
Kabi visitors also should take time to enjoy a meal at the 1870s Appollonian Hotel, a focal point of the Gympie goldfields in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that was relocated to Boreen Point in 1987.
Kabi Organic Golf Course: Kabi is 5km south of Boreen Point and 30km north-west of Noosa Heads.
Green fees: $A25 for 18 holes, $A20 for nine; cart hire $A25 for 18 holes, $A20 for nine (6 carts in total). Phone (07) 5485 3494 www.kabigolf.com.au
Appollonion Hotel: Phone (07) 5485 3100 www.apollonianhotel.com.au
Sunshine Coast public courses
Mt Coolum: An 18-hole, par-72 layout close to the Hyatt Regency Coolum and with Mt Coolum itself often in view. Visitors’ green fees $A44/18 holes. Phone (07) 5446 3125 www.mtcoolumgolf.com
Caloundra: Established in 1951, Caloundra is a pleasant par-71 layout with an abundance of wildlife and well-manicured fairways and greens. Visitors’ green fees $A40/18 holes. Phone (07) 5491 2626 www.caloundragolfclub.com
Tewantin-Noosa: A popular, tree-lined 6100-metre members’ course, 10 minutes from Noosa’s Hastings Street. Visitors’ green fees $A49/18 holes. Phone (07) 5447 1910 www.noosagolf.com.au
Written by Paul Myers.
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