Melbourne’s Yarra Yarra Golf Club has completed the first phase of a restoration project to highlight the best aspects of the Alex Russell design.
Undertaken by Tom Doak from Renaissance Golf Design, the initial stages of the project centre on Yarra Yarra’s opening seven holes. So far, Doak’s work has entailed a re-routing of the early holes so that the old par-4 sixth becomes the first hole, followed by the old fifth hole then holes 1-4 becoming holes 3-6 before moving on to what was and still remains the seventh. Further work involved the reinstatement of the original bunkers and expanded tees on holes one, two and six plus a restoration of the original fairway widths.
This early work is part of a broader project that has multiple goals. Overall, Doak hopes to integrate the tees into their surrounds as part of greater decluttering of the site; remove superfluous bunkers and/or reshape those bunkers that are out of character with the Russell style; adjust fairway mowing lines to fully engage with hazards and present strategic risk/reward angles into tucked hole locations and restore altered greens where possible. Where greens can’t be restored to their original location, Doak wants to least rebuild them to look and play like the original Russell greens elsewhere on the course.
The second phase will begin in November and will complete the first seven holes.
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Limited memberships at Yarra Yarra are now available. Please contact general manager Peter Vlahandreas for more information: [email protected] or (03) 9575 0575.
