The fourth instalment in our nationwide series crosses the continent to find the five best golf towns in Western Australia.
Golf is flourishing in Western Australia, where three of our past four major titles came from those raised in the Golden State (Minjee Lee, twice, and Hannah Green). Impressive for a population of 2.8 million residents. Apart from an outstanding high-performance system, golf in WA is relatively affordable for everybody.
We sought advice from GolfWA as we continue our journey to identify The Best Golf Town in Australia. In the past three issues, Bowral received the gong for New South Wales, Barwon Heads the nomination for Victoria and Bundaberg the selection for Queensland. As WA has a smaller population base than the three eastern mainland states, we narrowed our choice to five towns worthy of consideration.
Albany
The journey to Albany Golf Club is more like a pilgrimage to play a layout ranked No.99 on Australia’s Top 100 Golf Courses. The remoteness of Albany (population 35,053) in the Great Southern region, 405 kilometres south-east of Perth, is accentuated by the formidable coastline from where Anzac soldiers departed for the battlefields of Europe in 1914.
William Angove is recognised as the architect of Western Australia’s oldest golf course on its original site (1898) along the foreshore of King George Sound. Despite the kikuyu playing surfaces, Albany has a genuine linksy feel along with the novelty of ‘hogs-back’ cambered fairways on the 6,068-metre, par-72 layout.
Also worth visiting within a 90-minute drive is the parkland-style Denmark Country Club, the challenging Mount Barker Golf Club for its sand scrapes and the picturesque Walpole Country Club with its immaculate synthetic green surfaces. Walpole is also home to the ‘Valley Of The Giants Tree Top Walk’ where visitors can wander past the canopies of ancient red tingle trees.
Where to stay: Albany Bayside Villas is next door to Albany Golf Club and just a three-minute walk to Middleton Beach.
Bunbury
Honing her skills at Bunbury Golf Club as a junior was former LPGA Tour player Shani Waugh whose locker once sat next to the great Karrie Webb. Waugh now runs the SWISH indoor sports hub in Bunbury, an indoor cricket centre with golf simulators and TrackMan technology.
Founded in 1928 and established on its current site in 1948, Bunbury Golf Club is home of the South West Open. It’s been dubbed the ‘Lake Karrinyup Of The South’ with slightly undulating couch fairways, slick bent greens and kangaroos – but not a single red peg to mark a water hazard anywhere on the course (6,071 metres, par 72). Professional Travis Lord manages an impressive golf academy and the club’s dynamic junior program with midweek kids’ clinics.
Just six kilometres north-east of the Bunbury town centre, Sanctuary Golf Resort is a complete contrast with water on most of its holes. The Michael Coate design (5,903 metres, par 72) opened in 1994 prior to development of the neighbouring residential golf estate at Pelican Point.
Just 20 minutes south of Bunbury, Capel Golf Club is a 6,002-metre, par-72 parkland-style course designed by Murray Dawson. To the north, the beautiful Harvey Golf Club is always well maintained, while to the east Collie Golf Club markets itself as ‘West Australian golf’s best kept secret (with one-and-a-half full-time greenkeeping staff and volunteer labour).
Where to stay: Sanctuary Golf Resort has a variety of rooms and apartments ideal for a golf getaway along with an outstanding on-site restaurant.
Busselton
Situated 220 kilometres south-west of Perth, Busselton (population 27,233) is known as the Gateway to the Margaret River region. The coast between Cape Yallingup and Cape Naturaliste is a popular camping location while Busselton Jetty (1,841 metres) is the longest wooden pier in the Southern Hemisphere. Local professional Stephen Leaney is the finest golfer to emerge from Busselton, notable for a runner-up finish at the 2003 US Open.
Busselton Golf Club has undergone a resurgence under the watchful eye of superintendent Lance Knox, the 2022 recipient of the Excellence in Golf Course Management award (from the Australian Sports Turf Managers Association). Knox’s team has reconstructed green complexes and redesigned greenside bunkers. Apart from course improvements, Busselton’s conditioning is remarkable given irrigation is sourced from Busselton Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The Par 3 Golf and Mini Golf Busselton is a great introduction for newcomers to the game. The nine-hole, par-3 layout lies in a natural bushland setting with roaming kangaroos (green fee of $27 for adults to play 18 holes). The facility even operates a ‘beer-caddie service’. Further afield, Dunsborough Lakes Golf Club, 20 minutes west of Busselton, is a championship layout (6,204 metres, par 72) that is central to a residential golf community while Margaret River Golf Club some 40 minutes south-west is an underrated layout for the price ($55).
Where to stay: Hilton Garden Inn Busselton is in a convenient location overlooking Geographe Bay.
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie’s prosperity has flourished ever since the discovery of gold in 1893. For many years the prime tourist attraction in the Goldfields township 595 kilometres east-northeast of Perth was The Super Pit mine. However the 2010 opening of Kalgoorlie Golf Course established the iconic town as a bona-fide golf destination.
Kalgoorlie-born professional Graham Marsh designed the championship layout that has hosted the WA PGA Championship since 2012. Constructed at a cost of more than $18 million, funding emanated from the local council and state government’s motivation to turn the former tip into a world-class recreational facility. Half a million cubic metres of earth was laid in a spectacular transformation into the premier desert course in Australia. The Kalgoorlie layout (6,788 metres, par 72) is a startling visual contrast between the emerald green playing surfaces and the ochre pigment in the surrounding desert wasteland of dry gullies and rocky outcrops (green fee $76).
Where to stay: For a step back in time, the heritage-listed Grand Hotel Kalgoorlie is centrally located and close to 16 restaurants and eateries.
Mandurah
The once sleepy fishing village of Mandurah is just a 72-kilometre drive south of Perth along the Kwinana Freeway. Golfers are spoilt for choice in Western Australia’s second-largest urban area, with a population of 90,306.
Mandurah Country Club is a traditional parkland layout that hosts the Mandurah Open Amateur, a prime fixture on the national high-performance calendar. Pinjarra Golf Club, 18 kilometres east of the Mandurah town centre is another fine parkland layout with a smattering of billabongs.
The urban sprawl in the Peel Region coincided with the development of residential golf communities around Mandurah. The 1987 opening of Meadow Springs Golf & Country Club instigated the boom and Robert Trent Jones Jnr has shown his design flair with classical bunkering.
Secret Harbour Golf Links is a Graham Marsh layout just north of Mandurah that opened in 1999 as part of another residential golf development. Secret Harbour is maintained brilliantly and superintendent Tom Tristram received the turf industry’s highest accolade this year as the recipient of the Excellence In Golf Course Management award.
Links Kennedy Bay was a revelation when Michael Coate’s layout (with assistance from Roger Mackay and Ian Baker-Finch) opened in 1999. Located north of Mandurah, Kennedy Bay features the pot-style bunkers and hard-running couch fairways synonymous with links golf. It currently has nine holes in play as the course is being reconfigured by Marsh to accommodate a residential development.
Just south of Mandurah is The Cut Golf Course at Port Bouvard (2005 opening). It has arguably the most breathtaking cliffside golf anywhere in Australia as James Wilcher cleverly routed the layout to optimise the panoramic views before it traverses the housing development.
Where to stay: With so many residential communities, it makes sense to consider a professionally managed holiday home for a short-term stay.
And the winner is: Bunbury
For value for money and access to decent courses, Bunbury has everything a golfer desires. Bunbury Golf Club would be the envy of city golfers with an adult membership of $1,900 and seven-day green fee of $60. Sanctuary Golf Resort ($59), Capel Golf Club ($55), Harvey Golf Club ($35) and Collie Golf Club ($35) are all reasonably priced. Bunbury now moves on to our national final as the West Australian representative.
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