Blog 33 – Young

Nomadic_golfer : April 2020

Par 70, 5648m, slope 124, green fee $28

4 par 3s from 145 – 208m, 12 par 4s from 294 – 411m, 2 par 5s 403 & 466m

Course no. 5 from our Coolac base, also just under an hour drive away, was in the cherry capital of Australia. Young hosts the National Cherry Festival every year, has a population of around 7,000 and was named after the governor of NSW from the 1860s. Young was the first town in Australia to install electricity into the streets and homes of the township (1889).

Enough of that, we’re here for golf. Within my 1 hour radius of Coolac, this was the best conditioned course in the area, with even kikuyu fairways and small, slopey bent grass greens. The greens were of a good surface and quite quick; the slope requiring a few rounds to work out! Aesthetically, it is a pretty course with lots of undulation giving you some great views across the course and of the surrounding town. There are bunkers on most holes, water hazards on 5 holes & a good variety of trees (short to medium sized pine, gums, other eucalypts and poplars).

The layout is ok but a notch or two short of Junee’s. There are quite a lot of similar holes, particularly on the front 9 where holes 2-7 all go “up and back”, while there are 10 holes on the course between 290 & 350 metres. Despite this, the good holes are very strong/

The pick of the holes are: 8 (411m par 4 ‘photo below’, steep downhill all the way with OB right, framed against poplars behind the green); 16 (my favourite hole ‘photo below’ a testing, 178m par 3 with OB and poplars left, bunkers right); and 17 (155m par 3 with carry across a dam and a large tree on the left demanding a right to left mid iron). It’s definitely a course that favours some local knowledge; those heavily sloped greens and holes like 4 and 6; both quirky right to left short downhill par 4s with water left at driving distance and out of view from the tee.

The back nine is much stronger and more interesting than the front despite being 100 metres shorter and a par of 34, with one par 5 and three 3s

It’s another NSW course that gives you a good workout with lots of hills and the give of the kikuyu fairways seeing to that. And you won’t see any pins in these photo’s – the course was pin-free in the middle of covid restrictions.