I’m going to be fortunate enough to play several great courses on this trip.  A number of them are generally agreed to be in the best 100 courses in the world.  That’s an extremely high standard.  There are many superb courses I have played and enjoyed in the past that don’t get close to that level of acclaim.  I played the first of these yesterday.  New South Wales is almost unanimously regarded as the best course in the state of NSW.

NSW is not, however, without its issues.  The most common knock on the course you will hear is that it may be on a world class site for a golf course but that it is not the best course that could have been built on the site.  It has, it is said, a few poor holes.  Of the two most famous holes (the 5th, pictured above, and 6th) the 6th is a beautiful hole but fails to make the most of its setting.  With these criticisms in mind I was slightly unsure what to expect of NSW.

The club is set on the northern headland of Botany Bay, a few miles south of the city centre, the southernmost of a string of 4 golf clubs on the coastline.  To get there I had the choice of a $40 cab ride or the bus, the latter involving a 15 minute walk at the end.  I went with the bus and allowed plenty of time to arrive. I alighted on a bland suburban street and set off.  I soon, however, arrived at an apparent dead end.  Checking Google Maps on my ‘phone (how did we get anywhere before smartphones?) I realised that I should take a path heading off towards the sea:

It’s not often you approach a club through a National Park!

I arrived 30 minutes before Nick, my host, had suggested.  This gave me time to have a look in the proshop.  Like many others I know, I’m incapable of visiting a top golf club without acquiring some swag.  I’m conscious that, if I’m not careful, this could get out of hand in Australia, so I restricted myself to a hat with a circular brim (skin damage caused by the sun is a big issue in Australia and I have been layering on the suncream but wearing a hat that protects your neck as well as forehead seems sensible) and a pair of logoed socks.  Why the socks?  I had been told (correctly) that top Australian clubs don’t like socks with shorts that don’t cover the ankle.  Chcking the club website in advance I had seen that they also didn’t permit socks showing any logo other than a club logo.  The socks I had brought with me all had the logo of a clothing manufacturer.  I had, therefore, travelled down in trousers but with a pair of shorts so that I could acquire socks.  I am now the proud owner of a pair of NSW GC socks. I did note, however, that next to these on the rails were the same non-compliant socks I had left at the B&B!

Arriving early also gave me a chance to get a feel for the place.  The view from the 1st tee (right by the pro-shop) suggested I was in for a treat:

I was playing with Nick, a member at NSW who I had been introduced to by a friend who is a member of Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club and another guest from Atlanta, Bernie.  Bernie is a member of Alwoodley Golf Club and was in Australia for the Mackenzie Cup, an annual event played by a number of clubs with a connection to the great golf course architect Alistair Mackenzie, which this year is being played at Royal Melbourne.

I had been told that the first three holes at NSW were weak.  The first, however, was a pleasant and gentle introduction to the round.  Having struggled with my game on Wednesday I was delighted to strike the ball really well on the first tee.  The good news was that, although I didn’t score very well yesterday, I did hit the ball well enough to really enjoy the round.

On the basis of one play (I’m getting another crack at NSW tomorrow) I think the only really week hole on the course is the third.  It’s a sharp dogleg left with a blind tee-shot.  Nick told us the line, which is, in fact, over trees on the left, rather than into the obvious line of the fairway.  That makes it an awkward shot and both Bernie and I played further right than ideal, leaving long second shots (though I hit perhaps the best shot I have hit in Australia so far, a high, soft landing 200 yard shot with a utility, straight at the flag, only to three putt).  It’s an awkward hole because of the tee shot and the fact that the obvious tee shot leaves a very difficult long shot to an elevated green but not a bad one.  I wonder if simply cutting out trees to encourage a tee shot aimed further left might not make it a better hole.

From there on, however, NSW is simply brilliant.  Only two holes after the third, you reach perhaps the most photographed hole on the course, the 5th.  There’s nothing dramatic about the tee shot on this par 5, driving towards a ridge 230 yards or so from the tee.  In the breeze, none of us reached the ridge (though Bernie and I both saw our balls land near the top and roll back), so we all played 2nd shots blind over the ridge.  As you walk over the ridge, one of the most spectacular views in golf presents itself:

There’s a quote I read in the club history, which I was skimming whilst sitting in the clubhouse waiting for Nick, to the effect that if you think you have troubles and, on cresting the ridge on the 5th you are still thinking of your troubles, then you do, really, have troubles!

The next most photographed hole at NSW is the next, the par 3 6th.  We were playing from the back tees (just visible on the left of the photo above).  I have been asked for photos of people, so here are Nick and Bernie on the 6th tee, with the hole behind them:

The 6th isn’t, it is true, a great hole.  It is, I think, a good one though, not nearly as bad as the critics would have you believe.  No doubt, however, that this site deserves a great hole.  In fact, the government of NSW, who own the land, are requiring the club to move the green, due to its proximity to the coastal path which runs around the right side of the hole.  The club’s retained architect is Greg Norman, who might be said to be a strong example of the fact that a great golfer doesn not, necessarily, make a great architect.  He plans to move the green to right by the ocean, which will require some quite serious earthmoving.  It will be interesting to see how this progresses.

There remain a lot of very strong holes at NSW, making bold use of the undulations, going over rather than round ridges in a way that reminded me of Royal Hague.  The ground is sandy and firm and perfect for golf.  There’s no doubt it’s a tough course (we were playing in a wind that got up at times to a 3-club wind) but there are a host of thrilling shots to play.  I don’t want this blog to become a detailed hole by hole analysis of golf courses (I may occasionally put these elsewhere and link to them, so here’s one more picture, this time of the approach to the par 4 14th, a candidate I thought for best hole on the course:

I’m often concerned, in advance of a visit to one of the world’s great courses that I’ll be disappointed, that I won’t find the course as wonderful as the critics suggest I should.  I played NSW on a perfect day, 28 centigrade but with enough wind to make it feel cooler but also to make the golf challenging, in the company of two really nice guys and I played OK, so there were a lot of things going for it but I was blown away by this course.  There are criticisms that could be made, if you were feeling churlish.  The 3rd isn’t great, there’s an element of sameness to the tee shots on the par 5s and none of the par 3s is great.  All of that is outweighed by the brilliance of some of the par 4 and the bold, inspired use of the land movement.  It’s a course that clearly deserves a place in any list of the world’s best.  I’m absolutely delighted to be going back tomorrow.

 

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