Following the runaway success of the Robert Trent Jones Junior-designed Old course in the late 1980s, The National Golf Club acquired additional land in an adjoining property, enabling it to build another two 18-hole courses, both of which opened for play at the start of the new millennium.
Greg Norman and Bob Harrison designed the Moonah course, with Peter Thomson and Michael Wolveridge setting out the Ocean course. Over time, it became apparent the Ocean course wasn’t as popular as the other two National tracks at Cape Schanck so the club decided to do something about this in 2016.
Members were surveyed to ask their opinions on the playing characteristics of the course and their related levels of interest when playing a round on the Ocean and their responses indicated two things: a number of green complexes and fairway bunkers were too difficult and unfair; and the layout should be more enjoyable and fun to play.
The following year, Tom Doak and his Renaissance Golf Design team submitted proposals for the complete redesign of the Ocean course:
- All the greens were to be rebuilt and re-shaped, with three new greens on three new holes having the ocean in the background when played from new teeing grounds
- The routing was to be altered, eliminating parallel holes from the new set-up. This would result in an unconventional par 37 / par 34 for the two returning nines
- Both fairway and greenside bunkers would be reduced in size and in number, with greenside hazards positioned to never force a lay-up with an approach shot
- Existing well-regarded features were to be retained: large, open fairways, short carries from tees, existing sandy waste areas and some well-placed fairway bunkers
The course closed in 2018 to allow work to get underway and after months of endeavour, a ‘soft opening’ of the newly renamed Gunnamatta course took place in April 2019.
Tom Doak’s brief from The National was to create a course that complements the Old and Moonah courses. It also had to be playable on the occasional very windy day, providing a fun golf experience for golfers of all abilities and the architect has achieved those objectives.
The course is beautifully bunkered, but the sand hazards are just the supporting act to the main stars of the show on the new Gunnamatta layout, the putting surfaces, which are as fine a set of greens as will be found anywhere, offering a multitude of stimulating pin positions on every hole.
