Ocean Dunes Golf Course

First discovered by Europeans in 1799, King Island is a little remote, located around half way between Tasmania and the Australian mainland state of Victoria, in the middle of the Bass Strait. No passenger ferries commute to the island so the only way to get there is to fly north from Tasmania or south from Melbourne.

Until 2015, the only golf facility on the island was the modest little composite 18-hole course at King Island Golf & Bowling Club, featuring seventeen tees, twelve greens and ten fairways. Then, along came the Mike Devries-designed Cape Wickham links 30 miles to the north, followed a year later by Graeme Grant’s Ocean Dunes.

Suddenly, almost overnight, King Island became a golf destination that now features high on the “must play” bucket list of intrepid golfers the world over, especially those who like to play the game on as many top class courses as possible in the least accessible corners of the globe.

Architect Grant, supervisor at Kingston Heath for sixteen years then a design partner of John Spencer and Jack Newton during the 1980s and 1990s, chose fescue for the tees and fairways and bentgrass to carpet the greens at Ocean Dunes and the course was built by fellow director, Bernie McMahon of McMahon Golf and Sports Ground Construction.

Six of the holes are located hard against the coast, with the par threes at the 130-metre 4th and 210-metre 10th vying for “signature hole” status. The former plays across a rocky inlet from a tee perched above the waves and the latter features a similar forced carry across water to a Redan green that slopes from front right to back left.