Playing through kangaroos

My first taste of coastal golf came in Sunset Beach North Carolina.  When I lived in Charlotte, I would head for the beach probably six times a year, as it was only about a three and a half hour drive.  Myrtle Beach South Carolina is well-known for being a golf mecca, and when I was going to the coast in the late 80s and early 90s, the golf boom was on.  New courses were being built monthly, so competition for business was fierce.  Prices were high during the spring break weeks, but I always avoided those weeks and the lines of cars streaming in on 501 from the north, with license plates from Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, as well as a lot of Canadian traffic.  I would usually wait until around June to hit US 74 through Rockingham, and take a back way toward the coast on a two-lane highway that went along the border of North and South Carolina. 

Sunset Beach was my little slice of paradise.  It was only accessible by a single-lane swing bridge, not one of those concrete and steel monstrocities like you would find one island to the north at Ocean Isle.  Having to wait once an hour at the top of the hour for the bridge to swing open to let high-profile boat traffic through was inconvenient, but it was also part of the island’s charm.  Plus, it made the beach a little less popular, and as a result, a little less populated.  There were no high rise condo complexes and no hotels.  Just an island jam-packed with beach houses, that could be rented for about three to four hundred dollars for the week during the off-season in the summer.  I loved the place, and a big reason was the concentration of quality affordable golf courses. 

The North Carolina Lung Association would sell and annual golf card for $22 that gave you discounted rates at golf courses all across the region.  One of my favorites was The Pearl, which had holes along the Intra Coastal Waterway, and as a Lung Association Golf Card holder, I only had to pay $9 to play and that was with a cart.  Other favorites in the area were Oyster Bay, Marsh Harbor, Sandpiper Bay and Brick Landing.  Playing those courses made me fall in love with golf along the coast, including the pricier golf further south down US 17, toward Kiawah and Hilton Head Island. 

Kiawah had and still has several quality golf courses, but they are much pricier.  The most well-known is the Ocean Course, home to the 1991 Ryder Cup matches, the so-called War by the Shore.  Anyone who followed golf at that time can still picture Bernhard Langer, grimacing in anguish, knees bent, putter held vertically in front of him, as his win-or-lose putt just slid by on the final hole, giving the United States team the victory.  I’ve played the Ocean Course three times and it’s a spectacular layout on the South Carolina coast, with an ocean view from almost every hole. 

I couldn’t see the ocean from any of the holes at the Gunnamatta Course at St. Andrews Beach on the Mornington Peninsula south east of Melbourne.  But on a few holes you could hear it, and on every hole of the Tom Doak layout, you could feel it.    

The vegetation was a mix of scrubby pines and palm plants, with few stubby trees and native grasses that framed the holes beautifully.  The look took me back to my time in the Carolinas, only in this instance, I actually wanted to be with the woman I was married to, and in fact she joined me for both our rounds at Gunnamatta. 

It was strictly chance that led us to this course which was designed by my favorite modern architect.  In researching Victoria, the Mornington Peninsula sounded like a very attractive stop, and it outlived expectations.  We arrived on a Saturday on the last weekend before school started for the locals, so we couldn’t find anything in the port town of Sorrento where the ferry from the other side of the sound came in.  The woman at the information center helped us locate a two-bedroom cottage about a ten- to fifteen-minute drive from Sorrento in an area known as St. Andrews Beach/Fingal. 

I had read that there were a few golf courses in the area, but didn’t know that it would be much like Sunset Beach, with many very nice courses so close by.  A coffee table book called Golf Courses of the Mornington Peninsula happened to be in the cottage where we were staying and it had gorgeous photos and descriptive text of the layouts.  Turns out the one closest to our cottage, Gunnamatta, was designed by Tom Doak.  

My excitement level as we approached the first tee at Gunnamatta was as high as it had been for me on a golf course in quite some time.  We teed off right around 4 pm to take advantage of a twilight fee of $25, with the caveat being that they wanted the cart back in by around 7pm or so.  Annie and I are pretty fast players, so I was confident that with the course unpopulated, that wouldn’t be a problem.  

Quite often, the reality of an event doesn’t equal the ideal.  That wasn’t the case as we played Gunnamatta.  As is typical of a Tom Doak course, the golf holes looked like they were designed by nature.  Doak himself said that it was one of the easiest courses to build that he had ever worked on thanks to the gently sloping sandy terrain.  Construction was started in November of 2005 and the course was open in March of 2006.  That is lightning fast in golf years. 

One thing that added to my enjoyment of the course was how much Annie loved it.  She has similar tastes in golf courses to mine.  The fewer houses the better, and the more natural look the better.  The cart paths were sandy trails through natural undergrowth. 

Gunnamatta has no houses on the course, and none of the holes are unfair.  Some are difficult, but there are five sets of tees so golfers of all abilities can find the course playable, and there are always bailout areas.  There are places on some holes, like to the right of the par three sixth hole, that are certain death, but there is room to the left and the front of the green is accessible. 

The highlight of the course for Annie came up near the green at the following hole.  I had of course, brought my BANGERT ball along.  That’s the Titleist NXT Tour that I had personalized with my last name and was the only ball I brought with me from the States.  Along the way, playing in Fiji, New Zealand and then in Lorne, Australia I had picked up some stray balls and had a decent collection of a half-dzoen or so.  But I still had the goal of having the BANGERT ball for the entire trip, and felt fairly confident as I teed up the BANGERT ball and hit it down the middle of the seventh hole.  Little if any trouble is found off the tee, but the approach shot I faced of about 145 yards toward the green was uphill, with trees to the right and a blind area to the left.  Perhaps fearful of losing the BANGERT ball in the wooded area to the right, I hit a Thurman Munson to the left. 

A Thurman Munson is a golf term used by my golfing buddies and me back home.  It describes a shot pulled sharply to the left, or a dead yank.  Or Dead Yank.  You can also call it a Lou Gehrig or Babe Ruth, or even Mickey Mantle if you like.  Whatever deceased pinstriper you chose to use to paint a mental image of my shot, I had no idea of the fate of the BANGERT ball, and my quest to see if it had met a watery grave or was lost in the knee high gorse was delayed when we got to the crest of the hill and saw three kangaroos feeding near the hole.  They didn’t flinch at all as we played through, clearly accustomed to having golf interrupt their late afternoon snack on a daily basis. 

Fortunately, the BANGERT ball was not lost, it had gone down into a wide open collection area between the seventh green and eighth tee.  That was the only time it was in danger of any peril the rest of the round, as I once again judiciously used the ball only when I felt there was a strong chance it wouldn’t be lost.  

The bunkering at Gunnamatta is another outstanding feature.  At times there are rock outcroppings in them, while others have grass islands.  It's such a great, natural look.

The bunkers are strategically placed, and not just there for appearances sake.

There aren't any "oh-wow" holes on the course that you could describe as a signature hole.  It is, however, a course without any weak holes.  The finishing hole is a strong par-four that is a strong driving hole with an elevated tee providing a clear view of the final challenge of the day.

Annie and I liked the golf course so much, we returned and played again the next day and once again had a great time.  We hope it's not our last time teeing it up at Gunnamatta and enjoying one of the many great golf courses of the Mornington Peninsula.

Explaining a man crush on a golf course architect

I first became aware of the name of Tom Doak in the early 1990s when I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina.  At that time, Charlotte had something of a golf course shortage, and playing a decent course usually meant a drive of about 30-45 minutes from where I lived in the suburb of Mint Hill.  That changed when the Charlotte GolfLinks opened just south of town, leaving me a drive of just about 15-20 minutes.  I was so pumped to play it that the day it opened I had the third tee time of the day.  I loved the way the course, despite being brand new, looked like it had been there forever.  Turns out that is the hallmark of most courses designed by Tom Doak.  He is a traditionalist and believes in simplicity in design.  He has become well-respected in the industry, and his most well-known design is Bandon Dunes in Oregon.  Doak is also an author, having written the Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, in which he critiques golf courses around the world.  Back in the mid-90s, I bought one on sale for about $20 or $30 at Jo-Beth Books.  They now sell on Ebay for hundreds of dollars at times.  I still have mine at home. 

When we first started planning this trip and decided to make New Zealand one of our first stops, I had hopes of playing Cape Kidnappers.  It’s a Tom Doak design on the North Island just south of Napier.  I knew we’d be going to Napier since the town features a great collection of Art Deco architecture as most of it was destroyed in a powerful earthquake in the 1930s and was rebuilt with one of the preeminent design styles of that time period.  Cape Kidnappers was built along spectacular fingers of land that jut out into the ocean and the fairways look like they are melting down the sides of the bluffs and cliffs.  

It also comes with a frightening price tag of over $400 for a non-New Zealand native.  Once we booked a cottage in Napier and I had a definitive set of dates for our stay there, I sent Cape Kidnappers an email.  I laid out the details of our trip, how I was a serious admirer of Tom Doak’s work, and how I was blogging about playing golf around the world.  With that, I also asked if there was any way I could get the local rate or any sort of price break.  During our stay in Napier, I never got a reply, so I figured my request had been ignored.  Turns out that wasn’t the case.  Once we had taken the ferry to the South Island, I got an email saying they could offer me a media rate of about half of what the non-New Zealander rate was.  That was a body blow, kind of like that cheap shot block Hines Ward laid on Keith Rivers a few years ago.  Despite my disappointment, I figured at the time that somehow, it would lead to a memorable experience down the road.

With Cape Kidnappers and New Zealand a memory, I played my first golf in Australia in Lorne.  It’s a town on the coast along the Great Ocean Road, about an hour or 90 minutes southeast of Melbourne.  Lorne Country Club is a nine hole track carved into a hillside with some nice ocean views.  The first view you get is from the first tee, looking back toward the ocean and the beachfront at Lorne. 

The second one you get is on the approach shot to the par-five first hole.

That view was the first time I pulled out the sacred BANGERT golf ball, the personalized Titleist NXT Tour ball I brought with me on the trip, with high hopes of making it all the way around the world and back home.  It was the first time Annie played golf on the trip and we enjoyed walking the simple, yet well cared for course.  Being built on the side of a hill, there were several holes where your tee shot had to be aimed at the higher part of the fairway, knowing the slope would bring it back toward the fairway.  A nearby course in Anglesea boasted of being home to several kangaroo, but we saw none of them at Lorne Country Club.  And I've seen what geese and their droppings can do to a golf course, I could only imagine the impact kangaroo hopping around would have.  

The only wildlife to speak of was a kookaburra bird we saw near the fourth tee.  It appeared that at one time or another there was some wildlife of the human variety as there was a small wooden structure at the fifth tee with a sign saying Maudie’s Bar. 

Maudie was nowhere to be found, and with nothing but our imaginations to toast her memory, I hit one of my best tee shots of the day on the hole, a downhill par 3 of about 110 meters or just over 121 yards, one of the prettier holes on the course. 

My rental clubs were a variety of off-brands, including a three-wood and five-wood, a 3,5,7 and 9 iron along with a sand wedge and a putter that looked like it had called a mini-golf course home at some point in its existence.  

I pured the 9 iron, and the BANGERT ball landed on the front of the 5^th green and spun back just onto the fringe.  It left me a putt of about 25 feet, and for some reason, I really wanted that putt and sure enough that desire managed to guide the ball into the hole for my first birdie on the trip. I judiciously used the BANGERT ball the rest of the round with no peril at any point along the way.

The final few holes were fairly unremarkable until we got to the eighth green.  The ninth hole was up the hill to the right of the eighth hole, and to the right of the 8^th green was a sign with two sets of directions to the 9^th tee.  One set pointed straight up the hill, while the other pointed to the left and had the words "tow rope" on it.

Channeling our inner Magellans, we had to explore this!  The 9^th tee was about 50 to 60 feet up a fairly steep hill and a tow rope had been installed to aid in making the ascent.  There was an on and off button and a sign with some instructions for using the rope.   

Annie went first with me right behind her and we were doing just fine until we got to the top and a water bottle that was in a compartment at the bottom of her golf bag got tangled up in the tow rope!  Sensing immediate disaster, I told her to hit the red off button, thinking it was within easy reach, which it wasn’t.  I tried to untangle the bottle from the still moving rope while trying not to lose any fingers or other larger appendages, and she managed to stretch out one of her long, elegant arms out and mash the red “off” button just in time to avoid permanent or at least temporary injury. 

The experience closed out what was a memorable round of golf, our first, but not our last, in Australia.  Little did we know we had some Tom Doak in our future.

Me and Tiger

 

There are only three golf courses I can think of that both Tiger Woods and I have played.  One is Pinehurst #2 which I played in the mid-90s on a trip to the Carolinas and which hosted the 1999 and 2005 US Opens.  The 1999 edition was won by Payne Stewart a few months before he died in a plane crash, and the 2005 Championship was taken home by New Zealand native Michael Campbell.  Another is Muirfield in Dublin, Ohio outside Columbus, which I got to play in a couple of media day outings around 2008 and 2009.  Actually birdied the 6^th hole there, a par four.  Tiger Woods has had some great moments there, famously chipping in on the 14^th  hole as he fist-pumped his way to Akron.  The third course that I have played golf in Tiger’s footsteps is the Waikanae Golf Club in Waikanae New Zealand.  It wasn’t until I was on the 5^th hole that I became aware of this information.

I walked into the golf shop at Waikanae on a Thursday afternoon around 3.  It was a mostly cloudy day, rain was forecast for the following day and the air already had a feel of precipitation.  The course is a short drive from the house we are renting for two nights on the west coast of the North Island, about 65 kilometres north of Wellington.  It’s in the community of Waikanae Beach, and it reminded me of beach communities I had been to in the Carolinas, with no high rises and tightly packed beach homes built into the rolling sandy landscape. I scoped out the actual beach after inquiring at the golf course about the greens fees, along with rental clubs and their policy of someone showing up looking like a backpacker from Germany wearing socks with sandals.  With an ominous forecast for Friday, Annie dropped me at the course then hit the beach with the kids.  

Unlike the rental set of clubs I had in Fiji, the set I got at Waikanae actually had matching irons, made by Nike, along with an off-brand sand wedge, a knock off of a Ping Anser putter and a Goldfern Oversize three wood and SuperHead five wood.  No driver.  No problem.  As I found out with the relics I played pretty well with in Fiji, it’s the Indian not the arrow. 

After securing 4 golf balls from the fish bowl on the golf shop counter for $9, I headed toward the first tee, which was open with no one in view down the fairway, always one of my favorite sights.  I forgot to grab some tees in the golf shop, so I gathered some up from the tee box and teed up the newly-acquired Srixon and grasped the three wood, feeling the unfamiliar feel of teeing off without a glove, since that’s one of the many golf-related items I didn’t bring on this trip.   I didn’t tee up the BANGERT ball (my personalized Titlest NXT Tour ball that is the only piece of golf equipment I brought with me) because I wasn’t all that confident of where it would be going due to the fact that I hadn’t played in the more than two weeks and I was playing with rental clubs.  With all that going on in my head, I managed to stripe the Srixon down the fairway, finishing its journey in the right center part of the tightly mown grass.  I was unsure of the distance because the discs in the middle of the fairway were set in meters, not yards, and I figured I was about 160 meters out, which translates to about 175 yards.  I put the BANGERT ball down and hit a six iron fat, leaving myself about 20 yards from the green.  I chipped long and two putted for an opening bogey.  Not a bad start all things considered.

I immediately had a good feel for Waikanae Golf Club and it only improved on the second tee as I looked around at the setting.  No houses in sight, gently rolling hills, some of which were covered with heather with some low-lying trees and shrubs. In the distance, mountains covered with pine trees, providing a dramatic backdrop to the serene setting.   

The second hole was about 183 meters which converts to about 200 yards so I took the five wood out, teed up the Srixon again and hit it pin-high about 10 yards to the right of the green.  I dropped the BANGERT ball, chipped long again and two-putted.  Behind me, I noticed a husband and wife already approaching the second tee.  That kept the BANGERT ball in my pocket as I tried to pick up the pace, and I paid the price. On the third tee,  I pushed my three-wood into the trees on the right, failed to extract myself from said woods in one shot, punched out into the fairway before launching a crisply-struck 6 iron onto the green from about 160 yards away.  I could see another couple in front of me leaving the green on the next hole, making me realize at some point I was probably going to be playing with them or the people nipping at my heels. 

The fourth hole was another decent-length par three of 180 meters and once again I hit a five wood pin-high about ten yards right of the green.  After taking a couple of pictures on my Iphone of the nice views, I put down the BANGERT ball and pitched it stone dead, inches from the hole.  I glanced behind me, disappointed that the couple tailing me missed my bit of brilliance.  I had to wait some on the next tee to let the couple in front of me to put enough distance between us, which was difficult to accurately judge considering I had never played the course before.  That scenario played out again after I hit my tee shot a safe distance short of them, as they had to wait on a twosome to complete their efforts on the green before they could hit their approach shots.  The man in the couple waiting in the fairway was just over the crest of a hill and he was clearly there to let me know that his wife still had to hit her shot, as she was out of my view just over the rise in the fairway.  I could see her club come back and go through and see her ball head toward the green, just after I glanced behind me and saw the other couple waiting for me to hit.  After waiting a few moments to let the couple in front of me get safely out of the way while not wanting to hold up the pair behind me, I drew back the 5-wood and hit a surprisingly solid shot right down the middle, the ball landing what I thought might had been a bit too close to the couple I was trailing.  They showed no obvious sign of displeasure, playing out the hole, which I did as well a few moments later in six shots, one over the par of five for the hole as I missed the green on my approach. 

The couple in front of me had just hit their tee shots on 6 as I approached that tee box and I casually mentioned that I hoped that my shot on the previous fairway didn’t get too close to them.  The woman, probably in her late 60s said that it had actually gone past her.  Appropriately horrified, I apologized profusely, explaining I had never played the course before, was playing with rental clubs and that it was actually my first time playing golf in New Zealand.  That got me the conciliatory response that I was hoping for, and the man in the group, who looked to be quite a bit older than his female companion, invited me to join them.  After I hit another decent tee shot, I introduced myself to Roy and Valerie.  They were locals who were retired and she was wearing a shirt with the Waikanae Golf Club logo on it, so clearly they were regulars. 

I conversed mainly with Roy as we proceeded toward the green, and learned that he had been retired for 26 years after a career in civil engineering.  After some small talk about children, I asked Roy how old he was, figuring he was probably late 70s, and he told me 89.  I was stunned--other than some age spots on his skin, he certainly didn’t look or act like most people I know in their late 80s who are mostly dead.  He was walking at a good pace, carrying his own clubs and hitting the ball a decent distance.  He then shared with me how it came to be that Tiger Woods played this course. Steve Williams, a New Zealand native who caddied for Tiger for many years, was once a member of Waikanae and played there a lot.  As a favor to Steve, Tiger played in the New Zealand Open a few years back, which was played at a course not too far from Waikanae.  While in the area, Steve took Tiger to Waikanae and they played a round.  I asked what Tiger shot and Roy and Valerie didn’t know the answer to that.  I then recalled seeing a framed picture of Tiger in the Golf Shop, which I hadn’t paid much attention to when I first saw it.  Now it had a bit more significance.  

By now we had gotten to the 8^th tee.  It was a short par three, only 115 meters, but the green was on a table top, with dense bushes and trees behind it, and a deep gully in front of it.  Roy responded to my question by telling me the gully was dry and not a threat, so I pulled out the BANGERT ball, grabbed a 9 iron and made good contact with the ball.  It went right at the pin, landing on the front of the green about ten paces away from the hole.  Roy had pulled his tee shot well left of the green but not in trouble, while Valerie got a member’s break after hitting a mulligan which was a low liner that followed the contours of the gully and rolled onto the green.  My attempt at birdie was online but just short, so I headed to the tee, happy to have a bar, but somewhat sad that we were already at the 9^th hole, which would be my final one of the day.

The 9^th hole at Waikanae is a par five with some thick woods on the left and some thick heather on both sides of the fairway about 240 yards out, just as the fairway rose and disappeared over the hill.  I really wanted the BANGERT ball to make it out of New Zealand in my possession, to I hit a Black Diamond ball I bought in the Golf Shop, and hit a solid three wood down the left side, just short of the hit and the ball gobbling heather.  We couldn’t see the green from where we were short of the hill, but Roy helpfully explained that the hole was a dog leg to the left.  I figured a six iron would put me in good position for my approach to the green, but I pulled it some and it clattered around in the pines before coming to rest on some sandy ground covered in pine needles.  I had one or two tree branches about ten yards in front of me about 15 feet off the ground, but I figured I could navigate my way safely from there to the green, so out came the BANGERT ball.  The pitching wedge I pulled from the bag made solid contact and the ball landed on the green, about 25 feet left of the flag.  After giving a golfer’s head nod to the compliments on my shot from Roy and Valerie, I strolled to the green, two-putted for a par and shook hands with my new friends from New Zealand.  I hope to make more friends on the golf course in the coming weeks and months, as that’s where I’ve met some of my best friends in my life.