Darwin Golf Club
DARWIN Golf Club hasn’t let two evictions from its original sites hold it back.
The Top End’s oldest and most prestigious 18-hole course, Darwin Golf Club was established in 1930 but endured a rocky start after being shunted from the old Darwin landing ground. In 1934, the club would find a suitable place to begin again and build a new course at Lake Alexander/East Point.
The course covered 14 hectares of land and was originally a nine-hole layout, with fairways overlooking beautiful Fannie Bay. The building and design of the original course was truly an achievement, given Darwin’s relative isolation to the rest of Australia in the 1930s. Additions were made to the course in the ensuing years and by the end of the decade, Darwin’s only 18-hole golf course was in operation.
Then, after 39 years of history, fun, sweat and tears, the club was forced to move to yet another location – this time at Marrara, on what was then the outskirts of town. After the devastation of Cyclone Tracy in 1974, the threat of storm surge from subsequent cyclones necessitated the club’s final transfer.
Darwin Golf Club has grown to have the largest membership of any golf club in the city and with a Peter Thomson and Mike Wolveridge-designed layout, it is the ‘go-to’ course for locals and visitors. Its membership covers the full gamut of categories and the club is a welcoming, family-friendly space for the ever growing communities of the northern suburbs.
With new renovations planned for the club in the next 12 months that will offer members, guests
and locals even more fun and activities, Darwin Golf Club will continue to be an integral part of not just the golf community, but the whole region.
Darwin Golf Club
(08) 8927 1322
darwingolfclub.com.au
Paradise Palms Resort and Country Club
THE past year has seen a period of transition for Paradise Palms Resort and Country Club near Cairns.
At the start of 2016, the club lost its signature seventh hole – a downhill, lakeside par 3 with a cleverly contoured green – as part of minor redesign work to allow for a new residential development. It was with mixed emotions that the club farewelled its beloved one-shotter, as the Orchid North estate stood to be an economic windfall for the resort but one that cost them a treasured corner of the Graham Marsh/Ross Watson layout.
“It’s not a decision the owner took lightly, but council dictated how this had to be done and unfortunately, we had to lose our iconic par 3,” Paradise Palms general manager Peter Blackburn told Australian Golf Digest at the time.
The loss of the seventh required a re-jig of the remaining 17 holes. The nines were switched and what was previously the first hole was sliced from a par 5 into a par 4 and par 3 (which are today the 10th and 11th holes).
What hasn’t changed, however, is Paradise Palms’ appeal as a golf oasis in the tropics. An easy drive north of Cairns Airport, the resort utilises its sultry setting to the fullest. The surrounding rainforest is a visual feature and one that’s frequently in play, as is the series of lakes and creeks snaking across the layout. The latter in particular provide strategic value to a layout already rich in tempting options for cavalier golfers.
Paradise Palms Resort and Country Club
(07) 4059 9900
paradisepalms.com.au
