Course 12 for 2024 & 380 all-up: Lonsdale Links, Vic
Halfway down the 1st hole ‘Alps’. Lake Victoria in the background
Nomadic_golfer : January 2024 – Lonsdale Links, Vic review
Par 70, 5250m, Slope 120 $85
5 par3s 120-160m, 10 par4s 250-370m, 3 par5s 440-485m
My round here in January 2024 was highly anticipated, 3 years after the very well publicised OCM redo. This is a super-fun layout that centres around architect CB Macdonald’s template designs, based on some of the world’s best links holes. It is different, quirky and fun – but the course does lack a little length – lots of short-mid par4s.
The design utilises well-known templates such as the Redan (reverse in this case), Biarritz, Road, Eden, Alps & Punchbowl, along with some I wasn’t familiar with, or didn’t recognise them as ‘templated’ in Plateau, Leven & Thumbprint. These blueprints were taken from such iconic layouts as North Berwick, St Andrews, Yale, National Golf Links of America, and Sleepy Hollow.
The setting is superb, overlooking Lake Victoria on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, with the course extremities bordering the saltmarshes surrounding the lake. The OCM work involved a few brand new holes on a newly acquired piece of farmland (11, 14, 15 & 16) with the majority being reworked from the existing course and closer to the lake.
The santa-anna fairways were in good, firm condition while the straight-edged, bent greens were smooth despite a recent light-sanding.
Its hard to pick most memorable holes here as they all have individual personality, but favourites for me were: 1 ( “Alps’ a 295m par 4 with a semi-blind tee-shot that has severe undulations around the tiered green which would render some pin positions unreachable from many spots left of the green for those taking driver off the tee – it is an intriguing hole); 4 (‘Buckley’s Chance’ – a 250m par4 with water right and thick stuff left and the green tucked away on the right – quite reachable for many, but very high risk); 11 (‘Punchbowl’ – there is a lot going on with this 440m par5, starting with a blind tee shot on a left to right, treeless dogleg that turns over sandy wasteland, before a blind second to another super, multi-tiered green complex, accessed by foot through a 10m wide gap between 2 grassy mounds); and 15 (‘Samphire’ a 355m par4 which has probably the simplest design of all the 2 and 3 shotters here. Reminiscent of 16 at Commonwealth, it bends constantly left around some boggy wasteland , and has trouble right for those bailing too wide).
This is about as much fun as golf gets – not too long, plenty of decisions to make, plenty of quirks, plenty of eye-opening features, birdie opportunities galore and one course that you definitely want another crack at after your first time around it, as there are so many different options out there, that you want to make some other plays.
