The Tuncurry course at Forster Tuncurry Golf Club is a mid-1980s Kel Nagle and Mike Cooper co-design that was literally hewn from the seaside bush. With Banksia and Tea Tree plants lining the fairways, it’s renowned as a testing track.
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The Tuncurry course at Forster Tuncurry Golf Club is a mid-1980s Kel Nagle and Mike Cooper co-design that was literally hewn from the seaside bush. With Banksia and Tea Tree plants lining the fairways, it’s renowned as a testing track.
Forster Tuncurry (Tuncurry)
Forster Tuncurry Golf Club started in 1950 with a 9-hole course designed by A.W. East from Sydney. Another couple of holes were added in 1952 then additional land was secured to extend the layout to a full eighteen holes in 1970.
Within a short space of time, the popularity of the new course was such that a decision was made to form another golf club, The Great Lakes Country Club, on 148 acres of land located five kilometres further along the coast.
Kel Nagle and and Mike Cooper were appointed as course architects but a year before the new layout opened for play in 1984 – and in order to, in the words of the club’s website, “keep the momentum on the construction of the new course” – the two clubs merged to (confusingly) be known in future by the same name.
Eleven holes opened first on the new Tuncurry course, with the final seven holes arriving a year later. Featuring only one par five, the older Forster course extends to a very modest 4,868 metres, while its younger sibling can be stretched to a very competitive 6,301 metres.
State funding was obtained in 2020 for course improvements by Craig Parry (including modifications to the 3rd hole and relocation of the 9th green) , along with a new pro shop and amenities building, which will also house the state's only regional Australian Heritage Golfing Museum.