Capricorn

The seaside town of Yeppoon is positioned on Central Queensland’s Capricorn Coast and the rather well appointed Rydges Resort occupies a wonderful stretch of the shoreline, offering a wide selection of water sports in addition to 18 holes of golf.

The Resort course at Capricorn was the work of the Thomson and Wolveridge Design Company and it opened in 1986, six years before the Championship course debuted. Unfortunately in 2015, the resort downsized and the Resort course closed. Laid out on gently undulating coastal plains, the Championship course is routed through natural bushland and protected wetlands.

With courses constructed outside the USA in Japan, the Middle East and the Caribbean, American architect Karl Litten’ s work has been admired all around the world and his broad experience – he was a colleague of Robert von Hagge and Bruce Devlin from 1967 to 1979 – is much in evidence on the Championship layout here.

Many of the holes on the Championship course at Capricorn dogleg right or left (four on the front nine and three on the back nine) to test the shot-making abilities of golfers and there’s plenty of water to be found on the inward half, especially at the par three 11th and 14th holes which demand a carry all the way from tee to green.