Sydney is awash with upcoming redesign projects, including at its best golf course.
Photo by Gary Lisbon
Venerable New South Wales Golf Club has called upon a pair of Open Championship-venue redesign specialists to refresh its seaside layout, in what is the most high-profile of several course renovation projects happening across Sydney.
Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert, whose redesign credits include Royal Portrush, Royal St George’s and their much-lauded work at Turnberry, were at NSW Golf Club in late February to speak with members and further devise their plans. Work won’t begin until the summer of 2024-2025, although once complete, the UK-based course architects will add yet more names to the already eclectic and international list of designers to work on Australia’s best courses.
“This is an amazing opportunity for Mackenzie & Ebert to work in Australia for the first time, especially on another world-renowned golf course,” said Chris Coudounaris, president of NSWGC.
Parts of the original layout, which dates to 1926 when Alister MacKenzie visited and was commissioned to design the course, were required to change due to land loss during World War II. Since then, different aspects of the course have been rebuilt by various architects, leaving – from a purist’s point of view – an inconsistent architectural theme. Besides improvement to the strategy, playability and aesthetics, the focal point of the Mackenzie & Ebert renovation is to have all 18 green complexes designed together.
The pair tell Australian Golf Digest their work will be more about tweaks than a radical overhaul and their aim is for a seamless transition from old to new.
“All of our careers, we’ve been immersed in working on these great old courses,” Mackenzie says. “We’ve made it our mission to research the history of these courses more, so that the history informs the future.”
“Here – and with all of our projects – there’s maybe one school of thought, which is you restore it back to what it should be,” Ebert adds. “Well, that’s very difficult here because the land changed, but our belief is you restore what makes sense for the modern game.”
Mackenzie & Ebert are using this year to consult with the NSW members and devise the finer details of their plan. Maintaining playability – especially in the strong and volatile winds that can lash the La Perouse coastline – will be a hallmark of the pair’s work, as will accentuating the significant natural assets of the site.
“The biggest attribute here is the setting, which is one of the most uplifting places to come and visit,” Mackenzie says. “It’s not about sweeping everything away. It’s about making the most of everything the site has to offer. If that is minor enhancements of what’s already been done, then so be it. If it means sweeping it away, then so be it, too.
“There’s such a fusion of golf over such an incredible coastal landscape,” Ebert adds. “It’s laid out over an incredible piece of topography – quite extreme in places – and the members have got used to that extreme contouring. It’s another example of how a golf course just fits into a landscape so comfortably, but I don’t think I’ve seen such an impressive landscape when the coast comes into view on so many of the holes.”
“It’s golf on the land or over the land rather than a landscape of golf,” Mackenzie says. “So many courses now are completely man-made to a greater or lesser extent, but this is really back to the roots of the game.”
“The goal with all these projects is that the members, when they take over their adjusted, revised, renovated, restored – whatever you want to call it – course, they think it’s a more enjoyable experience and they’re getting more out of their membership and their golf than they did before,” Ebert says.
Northern exposure
There’s been something of a ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ trend in northern Sydney golf clubs in recent years. First it was Avondale that embarked on a redesign, before Concord, Killara and Castle Hill each renovated their courses. Pymble is next in line (more on that in a moment), and about the time work finishes there, Pennant Hills Golf Club will begin a redesign penned by Phil Jacobs from Gary Player Design, which will add yet another new name to course architecture in Australia.
Pennant Hills hosted the NSW Amateur in January as part of its centenary celebrations, with Jacobs’ course changes to take place in three stages beginning later in the year. He doesn’t have the luxury of room to move on the steeply canted site with defined boundaries. Plentiful orchards surrounded the course when the club was formed 100 years ago; today, it borders two of Sydney’s busiest arterial roads.
While a couple of holes will change par, the current footprint of the 18 holes won’t change as the green complexes and greenside bunkering will be where most activity takes place. Most greens are set to expand significantly in size, including a double surface joining the third and 11th greens, with the Ecobunker method – which stacks layers of recycled artificial turf – used for the reconstructed bunkers. Eighteen holes will remain in play in some form throughout the period of work.
Pymble Golf Club – which is known for nurturing the games of Kel Nagle and Rodger Davis, among others – is halfway through a redesign focused on the greens and bunkers, with course architect James Wilcher driving the alterations. In complete contrast to the NSW course at La Perouse, Pymble’s desire was to utilise the services of a locally based designer who can always be hands-on. Sydney-based Wilcher, whose work includes The Cut, Pacific Dunes and a redesign of Elanora, gives the club that local flavour.
The results so far are eye-catching. The reworked putting surfaces contain several bold shapes and contours, while the bunkers feature numerous tongues and lobes that are as striking as they are strategic. The in-built variety within the new greens is evident even at a glance, with the putting surfaces now much larger and with far more pin-able areas. The remaining work is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year ahead of the club’s centenary in 2024.
One designer is busier than the rest when it comes to northern Sydney – and he has 23 professional victories to his name. Craig Parry now calls the Northern Beaches area home and has spent the past few years tinkering and tweaking courses across the region, also paying most attention to greens and bunkers.
He’s redesigned multiple green complexes at Wakehurst and Bayview, penned a short-game practice area for Cromer and is set to re-do bunkers at Mona Vale. That’s already happened at Roseville and as part of a broader overhaul at Palm Beach Golf Club.
“They recently had their first hole-in-one by a lady golfer in 54 years,” Parry says.
Excessive – and unfair – bunkers are receiving Parry’s most intense scrutiny. Some simply add nothing from an architectural standpoint, while bunkers at all golf courses soak up a disproportionate number of maintenance hours. The nine-hole Palm Beach course went from 27 bunkers down to five and Parry’s upcoming work at Long Reef – where it’s estimated 22 percent of total course labour is dedicated to bunker maintenance – will see the number of them pruned from 71 to 42. Many bunkers will be replaced with reshaped turf, making the areas more user-friendly for all golfers but still challenging for better players.
“I especially don’t like bunkers in front of greens,” Parry says. “Removing them creates so many more playing options.”
Scrutinising bunkering is a growing movement in course architecture. Does a certain bunker need to be there? Is it adding to the hole? Is it fair for all golfers? How well does it drain after a rain event? How difficult is it to maintain? Meanwhile, the rising cost and shrinking availability of good bunker sand is making the decision for clubs in many instances.
If the current redesign revolution in Sydney is any indicator, the next trend in suburban golf courses will be larger, more dynamic greens and fewer bunkers. Golfers and course superintendents can be grateful in unison.
