Arundel Hills - Queensland - Australia

Arundel Hills was previously a private members only club, but in recent years changed title and with a plethora of golf courses on the Gold Coast, they took the same stance as The Lakelands and have moved forward by becoming a public / private course. Arundel Hills is Parkland style course with plenty of tall native Australian trees and bushland bordering the course and giving the feel of isolation despite the residential quarters surrounding the course itself. The course is also littered with natural flora and fauna with excellent upkeep of the garden beds along the course. The course is fairly open despite the tall gums. Many holes have either bunker or water hazards or both as some holes do which makes for strategic play off the tee and with irons / wedges in to large undulating green complexes. Signature hole is the downhill Par 3 15th! Amazing scenery on hand here and water to definitely avoid. Tyson.

Arundel Hills is a parkland-style members course on the northern end of the Gold Coast that, whilst a fine course, could easily be mistaken for many of the other resort courses in the area. It was nice enough in terms of design elements, with slight doglegs and water hazards prominent and elevation changes on a couple of the holes, but nothing really outstanding. It reminded me of other courses like the Palmer courses nearby, North Lakes or in NSW the two courses at Riverside Oaks. It was certainly not in what I would consider the top tier of courses around the Gold Coast and Brisbane, due to some repetitive holes and fairly standard conditioning. However all staff and members were welcoming to me as a visitor and the cafe bar downstairs was bubbling with a nice crowd after a members competition.

My favourite holes were the thread-the-needle style short par 4 sixth, the 'hero' par 5 finishing holes on each nine, the downhill par 3 15th and the long par 4 16th which is index 1 and a hole that I need to go back and play again, to try and remedy the damage it did to my score. (although this sounds obvious for potentially every hole: positioning off the tee and a well struck second shot must surely be the only way to make par on this hole).

I've played 23 of the 30 best in state rankings for Queensland and concur with Arundel Hills being placed in the middle of the 30 (currently 16/30 in 2018). If I was visiting the Gold Coast area and could only play one or two courses I'd be heading for Lakelands, The Glades or Hope Island. The corollary of course is that all those courses have green fees twice as much as at Arundel Hills...