Sanctuary Lakes Resort

IN: COURSE REVIEWS | BY: Mike Clayton | | REGION: Melbourne, VIC DATE: 14 Mar 2005 | Rated

Aerial View

Real estate has long been a feature of golf course development with one of the most perfect golf estates being the Wentworth Club just south of London. Beautiful houses lie unobtrusively amongst the sprawling holes of one of the best known courses of the London Heathlands and the St Georges Hill club close by emulates the perfect mix of golf and housing.

Both courses were designed just after the turn of the last century by the legendary architect, Harry Colt and one must assume the golf was the priority and there was ample room to ensure the real estate had no impact on the golf. Indeed, playing amongst the awesome estates is almost an enhancement of the experience.

The Americans have taken real-estate developments to a level unimagined by Colt and architects of his generation and many of the attached golf courses are simply adjuncts to the real estate. One friend once said cynically said of them ësome are simply ways to sell the real estate but the bad ones are just ways to drain it.

In Australia, golf estates are a relatively new phenomenon and by definition they are built on pieces of land chosen by developers for their location rather than how conducive the site itself might be for golf.

When Greg Norman and Bob Harrison first visited the old Cheetham salt works at Point Cook, south-west of Melbourne they found a tract of land about as unsuitable for golf as one could ever imagine. It was horrifically flat, the soil was terrible and the site about as miserable and windblown as a golfer could ever imagine.

Nevertheless, their masters had recognized the site as one of great potential in terms of profit and it was Harrisonís job to fashion a golf course amongst the streets and houses of the estate.

He did a masterful job of shaping tones of imported soil, and the only clue to the nature of the original shapeless and flat site is gleaned by observation of the surrounding acres stretching toward the city to the east and Port Phillip Bay to the south.

One could argue Sanctuary Lakes in not a real course in the traditional sense, as the walks between green and tee are long and most fairways are lined by houses although none encroach close enough to suspect golf balls might find their way through the nearest kitchen windows.

Many courses are rated above where they perhaps might be, simply because of reputation or setting but Sanctuary Lakes has no such advantage. It cannot be divorced from it's surroundings but an individual assessment of the holes has it rated, in my opinion, much higher than many of our traditional clubs.

The short holes are terrific and it is the wind which determines which is the most difficult. Into the south wind the 11th demands a long iron played perfectly to the long narrow green and when the wind switches to the north the 17th is equally demanding of an accurate long shot.

The par fives are strategically amongst the most interesting in the country. The 4th features a bunker right in the centre of the fairway with clear options to the left or right although Steven Bowditch in the 2005 Victorian PGA gave it no thought as he crashed huge shots straight over the sand. The elevated green is reachable but heavily guarded at the front and shots long and left slide easily off the back edge of the green and leave a difficult long pitch back up the hill to the flag.

The monstrous eighth is over 550 metres with its diagonal bunker arrangement down the right of the drive and players make the appropriate decision depending of their clubhead speed and that sets up a long second with a landing area guarded by a huge bunker embedded into the hill on the left. Only players of Bowditch's length can hope to reach in two shots and in this day and age a true three shooter like this is a rare thing indeed.

The final par five, the 16th features a wetland down the left of the long second that creeps across the front of the green and forces a decision from those long enough to consider risking reaching the green in two.

There is a fine mix of two-shot holes from the little drivable 15th to the fearsome finisher with a long second across the water being the final test.

It is far from the prettiest course in Melbourne, it is an awfully windy site but one without the outstanding natural beauty of Port Fairy or Barnbougle Dunes and the housing is the master or as some would say, the necessary evil.

None the less, it is a fine golf course full of both stimulating shots and interesting holes and judged on that alone it is one of the best in Melbourne.

For Bob Harrison it is a triumph on one of the poorest pieces of land any golf architect has ever had to work with. Certainly, God didnít ever intend it to be a golf course although some may believe he might one day have envisaged houses on the barren land.

Either way, Sanctuary Lakes is a course worth playing and for those prone to criticism, just ask yourself what you would have done with such an inhospitable piece of ground.

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