Building a five-hole short course has added a new dimension to Latrobe Golf Club.
Latrobe Golf Club in Melbourne’s east took a leap of faith building a short course and it has paid off, big time. A boost in membership, junior and elderly golfer engagement and corporate golf revenue can be at least partly attributed to Latrobe’s new five-hole par-3 course which is known as ‘The Island’ and opened for play in December.
Latrobe’s 23-hole offering sets it apart from its 18-hole neighbouring Yarra River clubs, including Green Acres and Kew. It is also the culmination of an eight-year journey.
In 2013, the club approached nearby Yarra Bend public golf course with an idea to support its junior program by building a makeshift short course with push-up greens that they could use when tee-times at Yarra Bend were scarce. Latrobe used a piece of land framing the club’s water storage dam to the left of the par-5 second hole, and late afternoons on the occasional weekend became the perfect time for Yarra Bend’s juniors to play it. Three years later, the club held a workshop where the plan for a more formal short course on the same piece of land surrounded by the Yarra River was presented.
Long-time club professional Tony Craswell and former board members Rosalie Flynn and Linda Nguyen were instrumental in driving the short course project.
“The five-hole course, to me, just nailed everything,” Craswell says. “It takes care of time, creating a facility that is welcoming, is non-intimidating and is skill-appropriate for people beginning the game. You imagine women, all-abilities [golfers] and juniors just being able to drive through all the stress of what a private golf club is, to their own little carpark, jump out and just be able to play golf at their own pace.”
Armed with a $375,000 state government grant, Latrobe engaged golf course design company OCM to produce the short course. The build was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic but the finished result is sensational. Many golfers can reach most of the greens with a wedge in hand, excluding the fifth and final hole, which can require a mid to short iron.
This writer played The Island with two balls on every hole and it took no more than 30 minutes to get around. Playing just one ball, it would be feasible to play the five-hole loop three times in little more than an hour.
The tees are long and most of the greens are too, so the holes can play to a range of different lengths depending on where the tees and pins are placed. And the quality of the turf is sublime. The tees and fairways are Santa Ana couch and there is a chance to run the ball onto all of the greens, which are Pure Distinction, a grass that has garnered rave reviews on the Melbourne Sandbelt at Peninsula-Kingswood and Victoria. There are bunkers at The Island but they’re only played across if the golfer is out of position. With a $750,000 project budget, The Island is expected to cost the club about $375,000.
Club membership has grown from about 1,190 to more than 1,300 since the start of the pandemic. General manager Bill Papadimitriou says the short course presents a chance for further membership growth via a new five-hole membership category, which will provide full short-course access and, if desired, tee-times on the 18-hole course at a standard guest rate.
Papadimitriou says member feedback on the short course has generally been positive and expects it to be very popular among those with young children.
“You take the kids around for an hour, it’s great to have this asset,” he says.
“We’ll be able to nurture people who are new to the game in the most magnificent spot,” Craswell adds. “We’ll have local schools engaged in Latrobe this year because we’ve really got something where we can take them.”
The club also hopes that, with the help of Golf Australia, it can engage with organisations including Empower Golf and 1Club to provide a golf pathway for people of all-abilities, including golfers with autism. Latrobe also recently began staging corporate events at The Island – an added income stream for the club.
“They’ll play golf, they’ll have some drinks down there and then they’ll go and have dinner and do a presentation and have a seminar afterwards,” Craswell says.
The needs of elderly golfers can be overlooked at golf clubs, but Latrobe’s short course is perfect for older golfers who have lost power from the tee.
“We want to do something for elderly golf as well,” Craswell says. “They’ve been members of your club for 30, 40 years, they get to 85, to 90 [years old] and then it just becomes too hard and they basically leave and move out of that community of friends because they can’t play normal golf anymore.”
In January, Latrobe staged a WPGA professional event – the WPGA Melbourne International – won by Queenslander Karis Davidson and women’s clinics were held in conjunction with the event.
“We virtually had sell-out clinics for women coming into golf, just brand new women who hadn’t picked up a club in their life, came along, did a clinic, took them out the back onto the five-hole course and started falling in love with the game,” Papadimitriou says.
He hopes some of those women will attend Golf Australia ‘Get Into Golf’ programs at Latrobe and eventually become members of the golf club.
The short course could also serve as a test case for turfing the ‘big course’ with Santa Ana couch fairways, Pure Distinction greens and new bunker construction. Short courses are popular in the US although in Australia they remain in short supply. Barnbougle in Tasmania opened a 14-hole short course, Bougle Run, early last year and Vic Open venue Thirteenth Beach and Barwon Heads Golf Club each have their own nine-hole par-3 courses. In Melbourne’s outer east, RACV Healesville has a four-hole course, and Eastern Golf Club has a nine-hole par-3 course. Kingston Heath has begun construction of its own short course. Craswell says short courses are pivotal to golf’s future growth in Australia and would like to see them dotted across Australia’s capital cities.
“I reckon we could have 20 of them around Australia. I think it would be the best thing for the game we could do.”
THE DETAILS
Latrobe Golf Club
Where: Farm Rd, Alphington VIC 3078
Phone: (03) 9497 1000
Web: latrobegolf.com.au
Photos by Henry Peters
