NSW is flanked by the Tasman Sea and Botany Bay where a Frenchman named La Perouse landed in a boat in 1770, alas for France a few days too late to plant a flag and declare that henceforth the entire continent was under new ownership, as Lieutenant James Cook had just done for England.
Either way, as the locals would tell you, there went the neighbourhood.
While it’s a conversation for a whole other column in a whole other forum than this humble one about a game of ball and club and curated sportsturf, the colonisers did make some improvements to Terra Nullius, as anyone who’s cooked a steak on a barbecue at Murramarang Caravan and Camping Resort would tell you.
Add to that list the golf course named after England’s first penal colony, and later state of the Commonwealth of Australia, New South Wales.
It is, simply, a brilliant bit of kit – rolling, bulbous, challenging, fun – NSW takes you on a ride, gives you a kiss, pokes you in the ribs, ruffles your hair, kicks your shin and loves you like a brother, and repeat for 18 holes.
And if you haven’t played there, you should see about playing there. It’s a course so good you could write a short story of every hole.
John Daly on the par-4 13th green during the 2009 Australian Open at NSWGC. PHOTO: Cameron Wells / Getty Images
As I did, after a typically harum-scarum round the other day, just for something to do.
To wit…
Hole 1. Par-4. 278m.
Like all the great links created by Dr Alister MacKenzie, NSW opens with a tickle; a short par-4 that I use hybrid to fade down to a fine spot about 110m out. My 8-iron uphill is tugged left a touch, hits the false front and rolls back to its maker. My wedge up is nipped purely to 12 feet before a big-bending and quick downhiller slides by low side.
Hole 2. Par-3. 165m.
A front pin calls for six-iron which I hit purely but left, the ball ending in a basin. My putt up the slope is hot but fine, like Jennifer Lopez. My putt from 10-feet salutes for par. Let’s get loud, let’s get loud, everybody in the room, let’s get loud.
Hole 3. Par-4. 342m.
If there’s a knock on New South, and there is, it’s a golf course, people will knock it, there would be gripes from the membership of the Old Course, Augusta National and Long Reef GC, it’s the blind tee shots. I’m good with the one on three, however, because I smoke a fine-drawing hybrid over the bad things and into the middle of the fairway. The third’s a hard-left dog-leg and a two-club incline to the green, and my 7-iron is tugged left again into a basin. I chip and duff when I should’ve putted, before putting on and then putting in for a fun, if fighting, bogey-five.
Hole 4. Par-4. 378m
A straight par-4 in which I: hit a big high slicing nothing drive; chop out hot across the fairway into a bunker; hit a pure and brilliant 6-iron pin-high; putt onto green heaps too hot; long putt back down the hill and miss; write down double-bogey six, you’ll get that.
Andrew Coltart of Scotland hits his second shot on the par-5 fifth hole at NSWGC, on his way to winning the 1994 Australian PGA Championship. PHOTO: Getty Images
Hole 5. Par-5. 445m.
First of the signature duo going out, my driver is high and right and bad, maybe 170 metres, settling behind all the hairy stuff between five and seven fairways. I’m yippy with the big dog, and no argument, feel like may need help. It’s that bad. My 8-iron is hot and good but could’ve cut off a lot more of the fairway, landing in some thick stuff left. Hybrid is hard and bad and right and may never be found. An eight results. And there is sadness.
Hole 6. Par-3. 154m.
The famous sixth at NSW is an architectural marvel, the tee box set out on the rocks among the waves, almost, the tee shot across the swells, and I’m inordinately pleased with my 5-iron and two putts for par. Check it out and Google it further, friend. Six at New South is a cracker.
Hole 7. Par-4. 365m.
After that bit of fun the course reminds you who is in charge of your emotional destiny with the long and strong all-the-way-uphill seventh. I tee driver low and smack it out there; then hit driver again off the carpet and whiz it flat and hard and fading into the front-right trap. My extraction is good – it gets out and hits the green – but bad because it doesn’t stay on and rolls a long way off. Putt back on from 20 metres nearly salutes. Tap-in. Fighting five. Off 14, you’ll take ’em.
Hole 8. Par-5. 495m.
The eighth asks players to climb over an escarpment, and good players can do that. I, however, hit hybrid, hybrid, wedge and three-putt for six-a-two; not happy Jan Stephenson.
The par-3 sixth at NSWGC: borderline art. PHOTO: Getty Images
Hole 9. Par-4. 334m.
Cool hole. Slightly dog-leg left. Hybrid and 8-iron will see you right. Mine goes hard left and leaves a baseball swing from rough on the side of a hill. I aim maybe 50 metres to the right and smack the 8-iron of my life … maybe not my life … but it’s a brilliant bit of kit and soars at the flag, I am told, because I am blind. But two putts follow and par, and I’ve gone around half of New South in 10-over, I’ll take it.
Hole 10. Par-4. 333m.
Another cool hole, I splat driver right, side of a hill near 18, I really may have to see someone. Baseball swing needed again, hit it fat and bad. Wedge from a hundred is thin and bad. Putt-putt-putt for a dud baby double, Jebus! But I hate-love this game.
Hole 11. Par-3. 145m.
Downhill three-banger, I tug 7-iron into the greenside trap, nip 60-deg wedge out pleasingly to 12-feet to the short-sided pin, and roll in the putt before walking off with the belief that I am, in fact, the ghost of Phil Mickelson.
Hole 12. Par-5. 464m.
If you’re going to score at New South, you have to take advantage of the long ones. For some reason I do not. I chunk driver into some bad things, tee up again and slice nowhere good, smack hybrid through a bush, hook a six-iron that could be anywhere, and write down another infernal eight. Ya!
Hole 13. Par-4. 370m.
Very cool hole. Dog-leg left. Long. Green perched up on the horizon like one of those infinity pools. I hit: hybrid, hybrid, wedge, putt-putt, for a quite pleasing bogey-five.
Hole 14. Par-4. 303m.
Really, really cool hole. Probably the coolest: drive into a basin, short iron up to another flat, tricky green. I make a four from nowhere. I am Mickelson, hear me roar.
A familiar sight at NSWGC: mighty tankers heaving out of Botany Bay. PHOTO: Getty Images
Hole 15. Par-4. 364m.
Oh? You enjoyed that, did you, pal? Well try this, growls the bunyip buried in the bowels of New South, as you tee it up on the index-1 15th. What a beast: drive has to go over a saddle, there’s nothing good either side, it goes dog-leg right, it’s long, it’s a flat-out evil bit of kit. I take hybrid because driver is a snake, then hybrid again behind some trees, hit 54-degree wedge too long, and three putt, and sweet Greg Norman’s ghost! but it angers me enough to take up Parcheesi, whatever that is, a dice game, possibly, or a style of blue cheese.
Hole 16. Par-4. 394m.
New South doesn’t care though for next up is another beast: index three, long and dog-legging left; I hit hybrid, ropey 4-iron, wedge onto the green and two putt, and I will take that like a KFC dinner box and a six-pack of Pale.
Hole 17. Par-3. 130m.
Short hole, small green, big drop-offs either side, I hit 9-iron into the sand, nip wedge out in a pleasing fashion and make another sand-save, Mickelson be buggered, I am the great Severiano Ballesteros and all his forebears.
Hole 18. Par-5. 489m.
Cracker of a finisher, I hit hybrid-hybrid-wedge-putt-putt and finish with a par, and add them all up and it’s … whatever; 19-over, 31 points in the stableford system of scoring, a pair of bogies on the par-5s and I woulda-coulda-shoulda had 36 points.
What I do have is a yearning to play it again. As you should. It’s worth writing about.
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