Newcastle Golf Club is set to be given a Bob Harrison-led makeover
After nine years of seeking planning/development approvals, Newcastle Golf Club is about to embark on an ambitious course renovation by leading course designer Bob Harrison. The 119-year-old club at the mouth of the Hunter River at Stockton has sought approval to build a retirement village that will see four existing holes replaced by new holes in unspoilt sand dunes.
Under the proposal, Newcastle will lose four holes (the first, 16th, 17th and 18th) along Nelson Bay Road to accommodate the retirement village (172 units). The club will gain seven new holes to the north-east in sand dunes.
Harrison is enthusiastic about the project given the history of Newcastle, currently No.31 on Australian Golf Digest’s biennial ranking of the nation’s Top 100 Golf Courses.
“Newcastle is the most glamorous of all these things that are happening,” says the industry veteran whose course-architecture career has spanned six decades that includes designing Ellerston, The National’s Moonah and Brookwater layouts.
“So four holes got lost. There are seven new holes because it doesn’t follow that if you take four lines out of a geometry that you can replace it with another four… They’re going to remodel those that remain.”
Development approval has already been granted for the golf-course remodelling, a time-consuming exercise given delicate issues related to ecology and archeology. Approval for the retirement-living development is anticipated shortly, possibly before Christmas.
Meanwhile, Harrison is defying Father Time. Harrison Golf is currently the busiest player in the residential-golf design business in Australia. Apart from Newcastle, it has seniors-living projects at Sydney’s Muirfield Golf Club and Cumberland Country Golf Club, Gosford Golf Club on New South Wales’ Central Coast, Townsville Golf Club and Sanctuary Lakes on Melbourne’s western outskirts.
Photos by Nick Wall
