Palmer Coolum

Located between Maroochydore and Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, the Coolum course first opened for play in 1988. Robert Trent Jones Jnr was the man responsible for the design of this resort course, one of only five layouts he has been involved with in Australia – the others being Joondalup, Meadow Springs, Cape Schanck and the National (Old).

Visually stunning, the Coolum golf course utilises about a third of the resort property, with a mix of links-like holes on the stretch running along the Pacific Ocean beach and parkland holes further inland among the native melaleuca and eucalyptus groves.

The Palmer Coolum Resort has hosted the Australian PGA Championship since 2002. Before then , the PGA had been played all over the country with a wide variety of winners. The man with most victories, Kel Nagle, has won the tournament six times – between 1949 and 1968 – and he is one of the few to have triumphed in both matchplay and (post 1964) strokeplay formats.

Two par threes are worthy of mention, one on each nine. The 171-yard 6th hole is played to a green protected by a bunker front left and surrounded by dense scrub with Mount Coolum as a backdrop. The 205-yard 14th hole has water running diagonally right to left in front of the green with a large bunker at the back to catch over clubbed tee shots.

RTJII was recently involved in a major overhaul of his original design, constructing six new holes to replace half a dozen that were removed from the beach side of the property.