For a course so famous and highly rated the first impression of
Royal Adelaide is usually one of bemusement. How could such a
seemingly flat piece of ground with a railway line running right
past the clubhouse as well as the first tee, second green and
third tee accommodate a course of such high reputation?
Alister Mackenzie had an influence here and some of his
suggestions were adopted some ignored. Local legend Cargie Rymill
laid out the original layout twenty years before Mackenzie's
1926 visit and the combination of the work of these brilliant men
left golf holes of uncommon quality.
The initial impression of a dull piece of land is soon dispelled
when the player gets to the fine second hole after playing the
somewhat pedestrian opener that turns left around the mounds on
the corner of the dogleg.
The second is a long five bunkered strategically to punish those
taking an unwise gamble with a long second shot and those who lay
up with a second must pitch to a large but well guarded green.
The Third hole is one of the great short par fours. It is just
less than three hundred meters and the green is reachable with a
perfect tee shot but the whole of the right side of the fairway
is protected by a fearsome sand dune. The sensible play is to
punch a long iron through the saddle at the top of the hill and
then pitch the long narrow green.
Nick Price won a South Australian Open here in the late eighties
when he holed a wedge for a two on the final afternoon but forty
years earlier in an Australian Open Norman von Nida made a ten
here, taking a risk in a vain attempt to catch Ossie Pickworth.
"That week was unquestionably the best golf Ossie ever
played", Von Nida told me years later.
Melbourne has an abundance of wonderful short fours but this one
in Adelaide is the equal of the best of them and almost by
definition that makes it one of the finest holes of its genre in
the world of golf.
The tee shot at the fourth completes a run of spectacular shots
early in the round. Played blind, the drive is fired out over a
huge sandy waste sure to intimidate the high markers but it makes
for a wonderful looking shot. The hole doglegs to the left over
the hill and the tumbling fairway ensures there is the
possibility of an odd stance to add to the puzzle.
The two other fine holes on the front nine are the sixth, a long
two shot hole playing up to a green at the top of the big dune
around which the best holes on the front nine play and the par
five ninth.
The famous shot on the back nine comes at the 11th, "Crater
Hole", a medium length par four where long play is somewhat
confined from the tee because of the sandy crater that crosses
the fairway at the two hundred and thirty meter mark. From the
top of the hill the second is fired down to the green at the base
of a huge dune covered in pine trees. Ironically Mackenzie wanted
to build a new hole from the tenth green around a hill to the
current eleventh green but the members rejected this proposal.
The current tenth is one of the weaker holes on the course and my
suspicion the Scottish architect could have done something
spectacular here. He was rarely associated with a poor hole and
we will always wonder what he could have achieved across this
wonderful stretch of ground.
The best hole on the back nine is the long par four fourteenth
turning to the right around a number of fairway bunkers guarding
the inside corner of the dogleg. It has undulation, strategy a
wonderful greensite and it demands two of the golfers absolute
best shots.
The final hole of real class is the par three sixteenth with a
tiny green that accepts only the finest of iron shots. As such it
always seems to be the hole most vulnerable to the almost
constant seaside winds of Adelaide.
Royal Adelaide is a course of unmistakable quality and it has
hosted some of the countries biggest tournaments for many years.
The most controversial was the 1998 Australian Open won by West
Australian, Greg Chalmers.
Organizers seemed determined to subdue the entire field by
providing only narrow bands of fairway lined by long and thick
penal rough. Had they read Mackenzies book,
[url=www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1886947007/]The
Spirit of St Andrews[/url], they may had better understood his
argument that type of set-up promoted negative play. He wrote in
the early thirties that, "Narrow fairways bordered by long
grass make bad golfers. They do so by destroying the harmony and
continuity of the game and in causing a stilted and a cramped
style, destroying all freedom of play."
It was an Open of bad tempers, high scores, it was a distortion
of the intended dimensions of the holes and my assumption is
Mackenzie and Rymill would have been astounded at the set-up of
the course.
Royal Adelaide is such a fine course it is easily capable of
defending itself without those who set courses up resorting to
such tactics.
Access
Access to this private club is restricted to members, guests of
members and Golf Club Members from Interstate and Overseas upon
payment of the applicable green fee.
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20 Dec 2011
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21 Oct 2010
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08 Feb 2007
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08 Jan 2012
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