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Ian, Neil, Min & myself headed out to St Andrews Beach on a day that didn’t look too promising at all. Although we were looking forward to playing a course ranked in the top 10 in Australia, the weather wasn’t playing fair 🙁

The day was windy & wet, at one point during the round we were pummled by hail stones, nearly blown off our feet, drowned in a down pour & bathed in sunshine. We had the lot. It wasn’t the worst conditions that I have ever played in but it came close.

The course was surprising right from the carpark. Maybe I built it up a little too much in mind before we got there, but compared to other courses around the same area it is understated to say the least. The clubhouse is just a small shop with a marque style balcony out the front for the 19th hole. Nothing wrong with it, it does the job, but I was expecting along the same lines as Cape Shanck or Eagle Ridge.

The course was along the same lines as the clubhouse. Maybe I was expecting too much. The course was challanging & to quote the Club Pro “Not for beginners”. It is a wide open Links style course where you get punished from vering off the fairways. The greens were fantastic, a consistant speed on all of the them & they run true. From a distance (i.e. the tee) they look a lot bigger than the actually are. The bunkers are placed in perfect positions to catch your ball. Min found himself in a number of bunker, it was out of the ordinary when he went a hole without landing in one 😉 The quality of the bunkers was great, the sand was great, this made even more impressive considering the amout of rain the we had prior to our round.

There wasn’t a stand out a hole, one that you would consider a signature hole. Most were nothing special to look at but there were a couple that looked brilliant. The 18th was a great way to finish the round.

Ian had a new set of clubs that he was trying out for the first time so he was a little wayward. Neil was up & down but he was the first to get a par & the only one to grab a birdie. This was Min first hit since Werribie but he hit some wonderful drives. My game was like Neils, up & down but I did have a purple patch in the middle with 4 straight pars. This was offset but the 9, the 8 & the 7 🙁

All up the day was a little dissapointing, mostly caused by the weather. It’s not a course I would rush back to play

I’ve add some photos that we took. You can check them out here

 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.