Photos by Nick Wall
The exact moment Cape Wickham Links strikes its way into your heart is different for each golfer. For some, it’s the moment the panoramic vista of the course unfolds before them after rounding the final bend in the road on the northern tip of King Island for this links layout overlooking Bass Strait to reveal its full majesty. For others, it happens on the first tee as they’re poised to strike their opening drive over a yawning chasm towards the safety of the wide fairway on the other side. For more circumspect golfers, it requires completing the front nine holes before that ah-ha! moment happens. Yet for some, it takes all the way until the stunning 18th hole – where the crescent-shaped fairway wraps around Victoria Cove below – to feel that internal pinch. However, even for those hardiest of souls, the course permeates them eventually.
King Island’s exposed location between the rest of Tasmania and mainland Australia yielded a must-play destination for all golfers. Design-wise a union between Mike DeVries and Darius Oliver, Cape Wickham successfully melds its many stunning coastal holes with a collection of inland ones that lose no momentum within the routing despite the non-oceanside setting. Indeed, it might be Wickham’s finest achievement: the manner in which the crescendo of the 18 holes continues to build away from the shoreline in a manner that vaunted coastal courses like Pebble Beach do not. Holes like the tantalising par-3 seventh and multi-faceted par-5 ninth lose nothing for turning inland.
Entirely – and appropriately – public, the remote nature of the destination requires some effort to reach. But the course that awaits makes the journey worthwhile. A 40-minute drive north of Currie, the major town on the island, Cape Wickham is the third-ranked golf course in Australia, according to Australian Golf Digest’s biennial Top 100 Courses ranking.
Featuring hardy fescues throughout, a grass that yields a perfect surface for such a course, Cape Wickham allows for a variety of strokes to be played whether you prefer the sight of the ball in flight or bounding along the turf.
The only other chunk of land on the same latitude west of King Island is South America. Therefore, winds whipping across the ocean have thousands of kilometres to escalate before striking the island. When they do reach Bass Strait, Cape Wickham is one of the first pieces of land the winds touch, which gives the layout its capricious nature. There are no guarantees in golf, perhaps fewer still at Cape Wickham.
THE DETAILS
Cape Wickham Links
Cape Wickham Rd, King Island
(03) 6463 1200
[email protected]
capewickham.com.au
