Where the grass is greener: A conversion of its grass and the rebuilding of all 18 greens has thrust St Michael’s into the spotlight once again.
If ever you think something as seemingly innocuous as a grass conversion can’t transform a golf course, think again. St Michael’s Golf Club, on the coastline in Sydney’s south-east, has reinvigorated its course via the twin alterations of switching from kikuyu to couchgrass and rebuilding all 18 green complexes.
It’s a significant yet fitting upgrade, and the results explain the club’s motivation for change. A revitalised and more dynamic set of greens now augments a tee-to-green challenge that’s long been underrated, while the grass switch far better complements the seaside location. With the final four greens completed in the past 12 months, St Michael’s is in career-best form. The improvements have certainly been noticed – no course in the top half of Australian Golf Digest’s most recent Top 100 Golf Courses ranking leapt higher.
Jeff Wagner, a former tour pro, long-time St Michael’s member, the club’s past head professional and now its general manager, knows the evolutionary story better than anyone. He reminds golfers that the course, which dates to 1938, was formerly wall-to-wall couch.
“When you go back to the days before fairway watering, when the fairways were dry, early photos show even the natural Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub – everything was very low-lying scrub,” Wagner says. “There were no trees at all because there was no moisture in the area… It was much more open.”
Once a fairway irrigation system was installed, the higher moisture levels allowed all flora to flourish, both wanted and unwanted. With time came something of a strangling effect as the vegetation thickened and spread. Later came the decision to plant kikuyu as the prevailing strain of grass.
“It was lack of money and lack of foresight,” recalls Wagner, who first joined St Michael’s in 1978. “They decided to start planting kikuyu, and it created quite a tense golf club, because the good golfers were saying, ‘This is ridiculous.’
“I remember being on the practice fairway one day – at 19 years old and one of the loudest voices on the issue – saying to some older members, ‘What a joke. One day, all the decision-makers will be dead and buried, and I’ll be the only one left. And I will make it couch again.’”
Wagner eventually got his wish. Despite financial constraints, the club began its couch program in 2007, row-planting two fairways per year. While some members initially complained, momentum grew as each year brought another two fairways restored with fresh couchgrass.
In 2012, Wagner took over as general manager. With the course now recognised for its high-quality couch fairways and Wagner’s vision of making it Sydney’s home of corporate golf, the club regained a strong financial position. This stability made it possible to begin renovating two greens per year – a project led by Ben Chambers from Centreline Golf Design. The timeline was later accelerated to complete the renovations more efficiently.
Reflecting on the journey, Wagner acknowledges the challenges.
“It has been a long period of course works, and I understand why members would be frustrated,” he says. “But now, with the hard times behind us, the future is bright – as they say.
“The real thanks go to the loyal members who have stood by the club over the years and to the many board members who have embraced the vision, provided unwavering support and remained committed to the course’s strategic plan.”
The outcome is a golf course that’s far truer to its setting. Couch just should be the grass of choice on such a linksy layout. That said, many of the new greens feature contours quite unlike those of a genuine links course. So perhaps let’s call St Michael’s a hybrid links – one where the soil and setting scream links along with a touch of heathland, while some shaping hints at a parkland style.
Whatever your interpretation, the changes have elevated the course from one of the mid-tier layouts in Sydney to part of the conversation around which ranks highest after New South Wales Golf Club, The Lakes and The Australian.
A LONG TIME COMING
St Michael’s has a history of producing top players. In years past, Dan Cullen, Harry Berwick and Wagner himself earned the club a reputation for its pedigree. Today, a prolific junior program has nurtured the likes of Travis Smyth, Harrison Crowe and LPGA Tour player Steph Kyriacou, while the club has also raised five NSW major pennants flags in the past 15 years.
It’s also long been a course and site rich in potential. Kerry Packer and Greg Norman knew what was possible, as evidenced by a famous proposal from the late 1980s that almost saw the club transformed into something akin to an Australian version of Pebble Beach. However, that concept was defeated in a vote of the members of the day, and “St Mick’s” continued to live in the shadow of its more famous neighbour. In reality, St Michael’s is an important part of one of the most enviable locations for golf in the Harbour City, which is why it was important to get the finer renovation details right.
The greens portion of the project needed utmost forethought, especially on an exposed site where the wind whips off the ocean and can come at you from almost all points of the compass. Chambers was careful to keep the contouring minimal around the favoured pin positions, though he added artful slopes in other parts of most greens. He limited himself to a 2 percent grade in the key areas, while introducing steeper shapes on the edges of greens or in adjoining runoffs.
Some holes demanded more boldness. The 472-metre, par-5 13th, where an errant drive to the right can potentially end up in the Pacific, has at times been reduced to 9-iron second shots by elite players and so warranted more imaginative shaping. The new surface is far from extravagant, however, with an appropriate degree of movement given the green’s location plus the difficulty of the hole.
The best example of Chambers’ design prowess is found at the 17th hole. The plan for the 17th green marinated in his mind for more than four years and was one of the final four to be renovated (along with the 10th, 15th and 18th greens). A short par 5 of just 445 metres from the member tees, although it can stretch to 498 metres from the back, the 17th [above] has always been a hole ripe for an adventurous green complex and Chambers was game enough to ‘colour outside the lines’. Being sheltered within the coastal scrub also meant the greensite isn’t struck by the same buffeting winds as the more exposed surfaces. That paved the way for Chambers to come up with a design that still welcomes a running approach – if on target – but repels balls not travelling on the perfect line. A cheeky rear-right section houses the most difficult pin positions, while an extended sandy wasteland begins well short of the green, evolving into a greenside bunker that flanks the right-side entry and the green itself. An ample-sized runoff area to the left creates its share of challenging chip and pitch shots. The entry is also squeezed by a small, left-side bunker that can’t be ignored. The high point of the green forms a subtle spine that runs from the edge of the right greenside bunker to a high point in the back centre and gives the surface its two-in-one feel.
“I was waiting forever to get stuck into hole 17,” Chambers says. “It looks a bit like Tobacco Road [in North Carolina]; it has a bit of that feel to it. I was always thinking about that green for probably four years.”
For any course designer, tastes, styles and knowledge are naturally going to evolve during a long-range project. Chambers admits to being enticed to express his professional evolution with the later greens, but instead opted to stay true to the original concepts.
“I definitely tried to keep everything consistent,” he says. “That was eight years ago – we all develop too, as designers. We get around more and we see more courses. So there were probably a lot of greens where it could have been taken to different levels, but then you see that same chance every year… The temptation was there, but I felt we held it together pretty consistently throughout.”
The collection of new greens works in harmony with the rest of the course. St Michael’s features both flat holes and others characterised by either distinct movement or an elevation change, and the renovated targets complement those traits. Even the formerly weak stretch of holes from the sixth to ninth is now a stronger, more enjoyable part of the layout. The course today retains its quirks – most notably blind tee shots, especially from some of the back tees. Yet Wagner has his theories on why they should be embraced rather than criticised.
“It’s challenging, it’s intimidating,” he says. “Your classic golf architect’s going to come here and tell you all the things that are wrong with it… but you go to so many courses around the world that have blind holes that no one ever says a bad word about – particularly some of the UK courses. Even Kingston Heath has a couple of blind holes that no one says anything about. The eighth and 16th tee shots at Kingston, and 17, the second shot into a par 4 – they’re blind, but no one speaks poorly of them. Both there and here at St Michael’s, I think because everything else marries so well and they’re such amazing golf courses, it doesn’t deter from it. It’s just a little bit quirky.”
Quirks that work and a marriage between new greens and a more suitable strain of grass, the modern St Michael’s is now a far more complete golf course.
THE DETAILS
St Michael’s Golf Club
Where: Jennifer St, Little Bay NSW 2036
Phone: (02) 9326 8000
Web: stmichaelsgolf.com.au
Course superintendent: Lee Sutherland
Head professionals: Neil Sarkies and Matt Smith
Head coach: John Serhan
