Golf Australia August 2015

IT’S coming around to that time of year again when most golf club members will be paying their annual dues. For many, those fees will be higher than last year, which were higher than the year before. That fee increase might just be the tipping point for a lot of golfers as to whether they continue being a member of their club or instead take the cheaper option of joining the growing number of social-type clubs that offer a Golf Australia handicap. Or perhaps they’ll take up a remote membership with a regional course, which is a story for another day. When you have to substantiate the value of a golf club membership and how often you utilise it against paying a mortgage, school fees and keeping the wolves from…

Richmond Golf Club is a comfortable half-hour drive from my house and I’ve played the course on bitter winter days, hot summer scorchers and in the more temperate weather of spring and autumn. It truly is a course for all seasons. And it’s been that way for a long, long time. Richmond Golf Club began life in 1899 with play on the site dating back two years prior to that, making it the oldest club on its original site in New South Wales. These days, this challenging yet highly playable course is receiving its long-due attention as the home of the $100,000 Australian PGA Seniors Championship. Richmond will host the nation’s biggest over-50s tournament for the third time this November with the club locked in to stage at least the…

THE COURSE LOCATION:Bourke St, Richmond.The course is a 60-minute drive from the Sydney CBD via the M2 and M7 toll roads then either Old Windsor Rd or Richmond Rd.Alternatively, East Richmond train station is right next to the clubhouse. CONTACT: (02) 4578 1739. WEBSITE: www.richmondgolfclub.com.au DESIGNER: Club members (1897). SLOPE RATINGS: Men: 127/124/122; women: 129/126/117. PLAYING SURFACES: Bentgrass (greens), kikuyu (tees, fairways and rough). COURSE SUPERINTENDENT: Mark Williams. PGA PROFESSIONAL: Mark Eisenhuth. GREEN FEES: $25 weekdays; $35 weekends. THE CLUB MEMBERSHIPS: Richmond offers 11 different membership categories. Full membership is $880 annually, with seniors paying $705 a year and juniors $105. Five- and six-day memberships are also available. RECIPROCAL CLUBS: Armidale, Barham, Bathurst, Bermagui, Dubbo, Everglades, Forbes, Grafton, Muree,Taree, Wollongong (NSW); Gungahlin Lakes (ACT); Cairns, Gold Coast, Karana Downs,…

PLAYING with an 18-marker at Barnbougle Dunes a month or so ago, I heard him admonish himself after a particularly poor shot for “not concentrating”. We had played a couple of rounds together already and concentration wasn’t as much an issue as a lousy grip – the same grip millions of others have tried to make work but never succeeded. He had been watching me play and hardly apply an ounce of what he would describe as concentration into a single shot all weekend. We weren’t scoring, rather just hitting shots and playing golf, and although I was paying attention to what I was doing I wasn’t ‘concentrating’. It seems to me to be a subtle difference lost on many poorer players used to blaming their ‘concentration’ for bad shots.…

NEW Zealand’s newest course,Tara Iti Golf Club, is set to open in October with some already comparing it to the likes of Royal Dornoch in Scotland and the famous Californian layout, Cypress Point. Designed by American course architect Tom Doak,Tara Iti was laid out amid the dunes north of Te Arai Point, a favoured headland among Northland surfers, about 100 kilometres north of Auckland’s CBD. The 11-kilometre stretch of beach has remained largely undiscovered, despite its proximity to Auckland. Doak, who also created another Kiwi gem in Cape Kidnappers at Hawkes Bay, is no stranger to crafting links courses, having designed Pacific Dunes at Bandon in the US as well as Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania. Both courses have gone on to cement ranking places inside the World’s Top-100 Courses and…

JUNE PHOTO CAPTION COMPETITION We had some witty responses to our photo of actor Joe Pesci during a celebrity golf day. The best entry according to our judges came from David Grinzi of Alderley, Queensland, with: “ You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it’s me, I’m a little f**ked up maybe, but I’m funny how, I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I’m here to f**kin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?” Congratulations David, you win a pair of adidas Tour 360X shoes worth $149. JUNE RULES QUIZ WINNERS Dozens of readers all correctly answered our rules quiz. The three winners randomly drawn were: Graham Bridle of Roleystone, WA; Greg McMillan of…