Just how breathtaking and dramatic a place is Tasmania’s King Island? Consider this: when it was decided to inflate the number of golf courses on the island in the Bass Strait, they added not just one world-class golf course but two.
The exposed location between the rest of Tasmania and mainland Australia yielded a pair of must-play destinations for all golfers. Cape Wickham Links (No.3 in Australian Golf Digest’s Top 100 Courses ranking) 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.
Entirely – and appropriately – public, the remote nature of the destination makes for some effort to reach. But the golf course that awaits on the northern tip of King Island makes the journey worthwhile. 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.
Nearer to the island’s main township of Currie sits the mesmerising Ocean Dunes course (ranked 13th in Australian Golf Digest’s Top 100). Featuring different terrain and grass types to Cape Wickham, this course added a new dimension to a burgeoning golf destination when it opened in 2016.
Touching Bass Strait in numerous instances, the layout ducks in and away from the coastline as it meanders along the island’s west coast. A revealing arrangement of green complexes is a feature of a course that’s location alone guarantees attention. Yet not content to place a merely good course on a great site, designer Graeme Grant set about giving golfers a cerebral examination amid potentially volatile surroundings. Several greens make for vastly different playing strategies based on pin position alone; throw in the Roaring Forties winds and the plan might change in a hurry.
Not to be overlooked is the island’s original golf course, King Island Golf & Bowling Club. The layout can rightfully lay claim to being the best nine-hole course in Australia, for even if it’s not, it certainly occupies a spot on the podium. Also typically windswept and rugged, it’s a brilliant design that blends the capriciousness of the location with rolling terrain to give golfers a quintessential links experience – whether as an entrée or final stop within a longer King Island excursion.
The Details
Cape Wickham Links
Cape Wickham Rd, King Island
(03) 6463 1200
[email protected]
capewickham.com.au
Ocean Dunes
North Rd, Loorana, King Island
0447 830 202
[email protected]
oceandunes.com.au
