The ageless beauty of Gold Coast golf
Facelifts are something of a popular trend on the glitter strip yet the Gold Coast’s most acclaimed golf course has aged so gracefully that only minor maintenance has been required over the past 25 years.
The picturesque setting that is Links Hope Island today is a far cry from the barren site that greeted course designers Peter Thomson and Michael Wolveridge in the early 1990s, the deep pockets of Japanese investors ensuring a spectacular transformation.
Asked to bring the same British links sensibility they had laid out at Twin Waters to the north, Thomson and Wolveridge were joined by Ross Perrett for the first time and crafted a golf course with all the hallmarks of links golf but with the added bonus of palm trees and year-round tropical weather.
Initially established as an exclusive members enclave, the closest visitors could get was a fleeting view of the water-laden par-3 17th as they drove along Hope Island Road but in recent years the doors have opened and public players made to feel like members for a day.
Members who like to take selfies.
A round at Links Hope Island remains a cherished opportunity. A chance to play a golf course that makes all your mates jealous and attracts likes to an Instagram post like mozzies to a summer barbecue.
Such is Links Hope Island’s appeal that the biggest names in world golf – names such as Ernie Els, Sir Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer, Fred Couples and Padraig Harrington – didn’t miss the chance to play the 1997 Johnnie Walker Classic at Hope Island just four years after its opening.
After a gentle start to the round, the par-5 second provides the adventurous with a chance to take on the lake to the left while the par-3 third and fifth holes are two very different one-shotters, one requiring precision with a long iron, the other only a short iron to a green with a false front that rejects any timid attempts at entry.
With its collection of fairway bunkers just short of the green no hole embodies links golf better than the par-5 eighth and the 315-metre par-4 16th delivers a short par 4 that is synonymous with all great golf courses.
But it is the 17th that every first-timer will stop to capture the moment forever, the approach to the par-5 18th just as photogenic (regardless of how many it has taken to get there).
Although both original architects have now passed, Wolveridge’s final gift to Links Hope Island was a design for some minor alterations to the front nine that will inject a new lease of life to one of Gold Coast golf’s most treasured assets.
THE DETAILS
Links Hope Island
Where: Hope Island Rd, Hope Island, Queensland 4212
Web: linkshopeisland.com.au
Email: [email protected]
Designers: Thomson Wolveridge (1993)
