Blog 99 – Cowra

Nomadic_golfer : December 2020

Par 71, 5890m, slope 115, green fee $35

4 par 3s from 129-189m, 11 par 4s from 289-398m, 3 par 5s from 441-520m

Getting close to the ton now, so a road trip for a couple of hours to Cowra was on the cards. Cowra is a lovely town of just under 10k people on the Lachlan River, 190km north of Canberra.

The course looks great from the first tee, looking down on lots of pines and large old gums, it’s quite green and lush and situated on the edge of town. Kikuyu fairways are good, still needing preferred lies though. Tees are kikuyu too, plenty of grass, a bit spongy. Bent greens that are very even, medium to large in size for the country, but quite slow, with a moderate amount of bunkers; a few holes without.

The hill that the first tee sits on features in 6 of the holes, either straight up or down it, no half measures or side-slopes. You go down it on 1, up on 4, down on 6, up on 9, down on 10 and up on 18. All the other holes are dead flat and there is not a lot of variety. The first 8 holes are all aesthetically nice but its the least challenging 8 holes you would find: short, with generous fairways and plenty of escape routes. 6 is a really good par 5 though, 470m with downhill tee shot turning left, trees down left, one critical fairway trap 220m out on inside corner, for a small trap this would get a lot of use; then flattens out and has a big gum 100m out on the right to penalise the bail out. After that soft start, 9 is a really tough, steep rising par 4 of 382m.

The 13, 15, 16 stretch is tough and this feels really different to the rest of the course. 13 (360m really narrow fairway with two thick rows of pines down the right and gums left, with a mini roller coaster fairway); 15 (similar narrow, 400m, OB left, fairway narrows to about 280m mark, has large dead stump in middle of fairway and has very long green, not wide with bunker on either side – very tough hole); and 16 (190m with trees overhanging left demanding a draw to a green that is very narrow at the front and flanked by a bunker either side). The 18th green is really unusual; it’s only 12m long and 30m wide and it has to receive a mid iron up a decent incline. I like it.

I’m in 2 minds about the course – its not difficult by any means but has those tough holes on the back and is very pretty and well maintained. It’s worth a round if you are in the vicinity but it feels as though they could have done more with the piece of land they have.

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