Barnbougle (The Dunes)

Nineteenth Century Colonial maps of Van Diemans Land, or Tasmania, as it is now known, simply mark a patch of the North Coast east of Pipers River as Low Sandy Shore. The golf course at Barnbougle Dunes runs along this shore, in between a wide complex of dunes that extend behind it. On this pristine coastline, 80kms north of Launceston, architects Tom Doak and Michael Clayton have designed Australia’s best seaside test. It takes some getting to, even for mainland Australians, but its reputation is growing. Presently the bulk of the golfing traffic is either wide-eyed locals more used to up-and-down-the-paddock golf or touring enthusiasts from Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne.

Doak, paired here with Victorian professional and designer Mike Clayton, is a well-travelled and cerebral architect and accents his courses with idiosyncrasies drawn from the world’s classic courses. Elements of these are present here, not in a Las Vegas style pastiche, but in a much more indirect manner in which the course is laid out in sympathy to the twists, humps and folds manifested by the retreat of the sea over thousands of years and the action of the prevailing winds.

Barnbougle Dunes is the closest thing to a seaside links as exists in Australia. The holes are routed through the dunes, some as high as 100 feet. It is an odd day when there isn’t a zesty breeze to contend with, normally from the west which means you head into it immediately. The fairways are smart enough but not over cultured. They retain every warp and fold of the land on which they were placed and a few more besides. Many of the greens flow in a continuation of the surrounding land. This is a golf course made upstairs, as the saying has it.

Barnbougle Dunes is a memorable golf course made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

The above passage is a brief edited extract from The Finest Golf Courses of Asia and Australasia by James Spence. Reproduced with kind permission.