A GREAT WEEKEND IN CAIRNS
If you are looking to play some mid-year golf in short sleeves look no further than Cairns in tropical North Queensland for a terrific three-day golfing getaway.
If you are looking to play some mid-year golf in short sleeves look no further than Cairns for a terrific three-day golfing getaway.
Playing golf in the winter months in the southern states can certainly test your love of the game. Frosty early morning tee times, two or three layers of clothing, biting winds and then, of course, there is the rain. With the warmer weather a few months away it can be very tempting to store the clubs away for a while. But it doesn’t have to be, as Far North Queensland during winter o ers perfect golf weather – average temperatures in the mid- to high-20s, and it’s drier than you will find it back home.
Cairns is the gateway to the region and the first thing you have to do when you walk out of the airport terminal is take your jumper o . Pack it away because you won’t need it until you head home.
The tropical sun on your face will have you, as it did me, enthused for a hit and – after an easy 25-minute drive north of the airport to Paradise Palms – we were quickly checked into our rooms adjoining the course. Golf gear on, we headed for the pro shop.
There are few more beautiful settings in Queensland for golf than what you will find at
Paradise Palms. Heading to the 1st tee, the rainforest covered Great Dividing Range towers above the course to the right and, on most days, there will be a hint of breeze in your face. The majestic mountain range provides a stunning backdrop to most holes on the layout, which features rolling fairways, lined predominantly by stands of eucalypts and dense outcrops of tropical vegetation. Six man-made lakes and several creeks that dissect the layout add to the challenge and beauty of a round here.
It’s dicult to imagine this site was once covered by acres of sugar cane. In fact, when the former design team of Graham Marsh and Ross Watson were shown the site by developers back in the early 1990s, sugar cane was all they saw.
Paradise Palms has had its ups and downs during the past decade but it is now in the best condition I have seen it in for many years.
It’s no coincidence the rising standard of presentation has accompanied new owners who took over in 2015 and have since transformed the layout, including the redesign of several holes.
What was the course’s signature hole, the downhill par-3 7th, and the adjoining driving range were taken out of play a few years ago and an access road built to the first residential development area of a luxury unit development.
The course has also been reconfigured to cover the loss of the 7th hole with a round now starting from the original 10th tee. The old par-5 1st hole, has been reduced to a par-4 and plays as the new 10th hole with a new green built just beyond a water hazard that cuts the fairway in two. The new 11th hole is a par-3 with a tee constructed behind the new 10th green and play is to the original 1st green. The round concludes on the original 9th hole, which has always been a strong par-4 but its role as the closing hole gives it even more punch.
There were no winners or losers on the course after the opening round of our weekend trip, with a dozen skins left hanging after the tough 9th was halved in bogies. It was decided the skins would be put up for grabs on the mini-golf course, which lies between the course and the resort, and our lone ‘lefty’, appropriately nicknamed Phil, scorched around the first nine in 14 putts and hung on to win all the cash with an ace at the second last hole. Dinner was on Phil.
It was an early start to day two as we ventured 40 minutes north along the Captain Cook Highway to Port Douglas for a round at Palmer
Sea Reef. I hadn’t played the course since businessman/mining magnate/car collector/ dinosaur aficionado/politician Clive Palmer bought the layout a few years back and was pleasantly surprised at how good it looked.
Covering 73 hectares of land once covered by cane fields, it has all the elements of a links course – large greens, pot bunkering, devilish mounding, humps and hollows. What sets this place apart is the rainforest that cuts through the middle of the property, not to mention the signs warning of estuarine crocodiles near several of the course’s water hazards. Despite our best eorts, we didn’t see any crocs, although Phil reckoned there was one in a water hazard left of the 9th fairway but we put it down to bloodshot eyes from too many reds the night before.
Designed by Peter Thomson, Mike Wolveridge and Ross Perrett, Sea Reef opens with my favourite hole on the course. It is an imposing par-4 that stretches to 380 metres from the tips. The prevailing breeze is into your face standing on the tee where you can see the fairway winding right around a bunker, a pond and a clump of rainforest. The rolling multi-levelled green is typical of many of the putting surfaces at Sea Reef – protected on most sides by hillocks and at least one bunker. However, being true to all links courses, there is a massive opening at the front
of the green to play a bump shot in underneath the wind.
Mick, who plays every shot cross-handed and is a burglar o a 15-handicap, had three fourpointers in the round and was rolling in our cash as we balanced the accounts over a beer on the deck in front of the clubhouse. Instead of feeding us that night, he blew his small fortune on half a dozen Port Douglas T-shirts being peddled by a hippie backpacker in a main street shop.
Sunday morning sleep-ins are one of life’s little luxuries. But sleep would have to wait this particular Sunday as our flight back to reality in Sydney was departing at 12.40, which is why we were bound for Cairns Golf Club at 6.30am.
There wasn’t a hint of chill in the air as we hit a few practice putts before hitting o . It was, in every sense of the word, a ‘perfect’ morning for golf.
The Cairns course, a humble nine-holer when it opened in 1930, is today a very good 18-hole layout that was extensively redesigned in the early 90s by Ross Watson.
Watson’s changes dramatically improved the variety of holes on the course, which is laid out amidst tropical and native landscaping against an ever-present Great Dividing Range backdrop. Watson created fairways, for the most part, with plenty of width, which plays into the hands of the player who likes to give his driver a rip whenever possible. But the key to good scoring here is to find the correct side of the fairway to leave the best approach into the angled greens, most of which feature bunkers and mounds around their surrounds – another aspect of Watson’s redesign.
The conversion of Cairns’ greens from Bermuda to Novotek in recent years has taken the layout to another level in terms of its presentation.
There are some quite memorable holes on this par-72, but, for mine, one of the impressive features of the layout is the quality of the par-3s. The 210-metre 5th hole is the hardest of the one-shotters and for good reason. Most players will be using a long iron or wood here and the entrance into the huge putting surface is relatively narrow, between two bunkers, for those wanting to run their approach onto the green. Phil wasn’t so lucky with his tee shot here and he found the front right trap. But when he holed his bunker shot for a birdie two and five points on the hole, he collected the first of several big skins on the day.
We halved all the holes through to the par-5 18th. I noticed the friendly banter had gone a few holes earlier and the boys were putting their heads down to win the remaining skins. Cairns’ 18th is a narrow excursion of 462 metres, with the only real trouble coming in the form of four bunkers approaching and next to the green. Cross-handed Mick played a lovely 3-wood into the neck of fairway between the bunkers and pitched to just under three feet from the cup. The rest of us made it onto the green in regulation but the closest, outside of Mick, was Phil and he was at least 30 feet away. After two long range misses it was up to Phil to make his putt and square Mick. He rolled it in like we were back at mini-golf. It was enough to rattle Mick, who pushed his short putt so badly it missed the hole completely and the pot went to Phil, who kindly used some his winnings at the airport to buy Cairns fridge magnets for each of us.
THE CONVERSION OF CAIRNS’ GREENS FROM BERMUDA TO NOVOTEK HAS TAKEN THE LAYOUT TO ANOTHER LEVEL IN TERMS OF ITS PRESENTATION.