I awoke this morning to the sound of heavy rain.  A quick look outside confirmed that the decision to play at Royal Hobart yesterday, rather than today was inspired.  It wasn’t just wet, though, it was freezing cold.  The plan today was to go up to 7 Mile Beach (along fro RH and near the airport) to see the land on which 2 new courses are planned to be built.  I was picked up by Dieter as arranged at 9am.  Having cursed myself for packing a sweater and a rain coat I was now delighted I did.  We drove for 30 minutes, the last 10 down a dirt track, to a locked gate where we waited for the rest of the crew, who had the key to the site.  After a further 5 minutes driving down the increasingly rough track, we parked up and got out.  Again, I forgot my camera (this won’t happen again) but, to be honest, the weather was so miserable that I’m not sure I’d have taken many pictures anyway.

We looked first at the 5 Mile Beach site.  7 Mile Beach and 5 Mile Beach are, unsurprisingly two long beaches on a spit of land close to the Hobart Airport.  5 Mile is on the North side and 7 Mile on the South side of the spit.  The land itself is sandy and duny.  Despite being on the same piece of land the two sites are quite different.  5 Mile Beach has relatively small, rolling dunes, whilst 7 Mile has much bigger, much more dramatic dunes.  5 Mile will make a superb golf course, in competent hands.  7 Mile could make a brilliant golf course but it will take expert design.  It’s easy to build dramatic features in dramatic land but great golf isn’t about drama (though it can help) but about how the terrain is played over and affects the game.  That’s why relatively flat dunes, such as those at St Andrews of Muirfield, can provide much better golf than some of the courses, say, on the west coats of Ireland which have huge dunes.  The latter can appeal more to those who play them once but the former are, ultimately, more satisfying, interesting and challenging, except in those rare cases where a truly talented architect has been at work.

It will be interesting to see how these two sites pan out, if funds for their construction can be raised.

We retired, rather wet and bedraggled to Royal Hobart for a drink and some lunch.  One of the group was due to make a presentation to the club’s committee in the hope of being awarded the contract to work with the club on improvements to their course and had brought plans (and plans of another Australian course he is working on), which were laid out on a table and the subject of much discussion.  Finally, we left, and I said goodbye to the group.  I’ll be seeing Rich M again on Tuesday, when he takes me around his home club, Kingston Heath.  The others, I hope to get another chance to meet in the future, perhaps in the UK where I can return some of their splendid hospitality.

The good news is that the forecast for Melbourne is showers tomorrow but improving from then on.

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