Gardiners Run

Chirnside Park Country Club sold its golf course to property developers then built a new 18-hole layout 4.5 kilometres away, leaving behind the old clubhouse, bowling greens and tennis courts. The golfing section of the country club then opened as Gardiners Run Golf Course in 2014.

Designed by Phil Ryan of Pacific Coast Design, the layout occupies an old quarry, with mounding and plantings separating holes that are set out in a modern, resort-style fashion on a pretty flat landscape where water comes into play occasionally.

Don’t expect to ease into the round here as the right doglegging 1st is rated stroke index 1 on the scorecard and it plays to an hour-glass-shaped green, the first of many such putting surfaces on the layout (along with dozens of “cookie-cutter” bunkers).

A small pond threatens the tee shot on both the par three 3rd and par four 6th in the southeast corner of the property but the main aquatic challenge is reserved until last at the 380-metre 18th, which is played to a peninsula home green in front of the clubhouse.