Blog 304 - Kooralbyn Valley - Nomadic Aussie Golfer

Course 38 for 2024 & 399 all-up: Kooralbyn Valley, Qld

“Eagles Nest” the stunning 220m downhill 5th

Nomadic_golfer : December 2024 – Kooralbyn Valley Qld, review

Par 72 6092m Slope 131 $75

4 par3s 153 – 220m, 10 par4s 315 – 408m, 4 par5s 407 – 462m

This well-known Aussie resort in SE Qld’s ‘Scenic Rim’ houses an 18 hole resort course set on a spectacular bush site where holes have been carved out of forest and many ‘sit on their own’. There is lots of wild scrub bush to penalise really wide shots but fairways, then first cut are typically generous.

The Kooralbyn recipe is a bit of water, sand, mounds, run-offs, small greens with nuances, table-top fairways, some with banks both sides, some with banks one side, drop-offs on the other. The aesthetic is magnificent with the course cut out of the bush and the Aussie native animals all around you, roos everywhere and plenty of large kookaburras on my visit.

The story of Kooralbyn’s rise and fall, then ‘second-coming is quite well publicised and the course as it stands today, does give you a bit of a feeling of ‘what-if’. It was probably Australia’s first real golf-centric resort, dreamt up in the mid to late 70’s and opened in 1979 with Scot Desmond Muirhead designing the course. It was well marketed and people flocked here, both as tourists to see what all the fuss was about, and as residents to live in this fun community. Golfing superstars played here, it housed the golf program at the nearby Kooralbyn International School, with Adam Scott & Jason Day cutting their teeth here.

But during the GFC in 2008, the owner’s financier went belly-up, forcing the resort’s closure. It remained closed and took on a ghost-town identity until 2013 when the site was sold. $10m was sunk into the resort and it was re-opened in 2016 with redesigned and rebuilt greens and bunkers reshaped [An article in 2021 says it was up for sale again??].

As this was my first visit, I have no record of condition through the years, and despite the boggy conditions I experienced following recent torrential rain, looking through that facade, I reckon the playing surfaces were pretty good. The obvious deterioration is in the infrastructure – carts are obligatory and the paths are past ‘end of life’, but they look to be getting good numbers on the course.

The small greens place a premium on precise iron play, and they have plenty of lumps and bumps for greens of this size, not so much tilt. The very soft conditions made up and downs on my visit much easier than would normally be the case.

It is fair dinkum picturesque and there are a number of super holes. The 2 that get most mention are the extreme downhill 220m 5th (see photos) and the 408m par4 15th that requires two lake carries. But there are subtler holes that are just as good out there. My favourite was the 520m par5 13th, that points you right off the tee, then sticks water down the right that juts out into the fairway with 50-70m to go, then plonks a shallow redan-shaped green at you. There are decisions to make all the way down this beast. The start is interesting too, with 3 par4s around the 350m mark in the first four holes, with the hole named after Charlie Earp (322m 3rd) my favourite of all of the short to mid length 4s. It snakes its way right to left and up a hill through a U-shaped fairway, to a narrow, elevated green.

Overall, this is such an interesting course to play/ place to visit. In a similar vein to Palmer Coolum, you find your eyes straying to the surrounds and the rustic/ less than pristine surrounds. But, as is also the case with Coolum, the golfing bones here are excellent. The design is captivating and your iron game is tested. There is also a bit of thinking to do to position yourself off the tee, for best shots in to the tricky green complexes.

Each hole has been named and as a nice touch, the majority are named after Aussie (mostly Queenslanders) icons, as outlined below.