Top 100 Golf Courses has been ranking golf courses in Australia since 2006 and we’re still developing the process across a country that is not only vast but also jam-packed with quality golf courses. The process of defining our latest Top 100 was the toughest yet.
There are only half a dozen new entries in our revised Australian rankings, the highest of which, Stonecutters Ridge, debuts at position 64. Constructed by Medallist Developments, Stonecutters Ridge has the distinction of being the first Greg Norman course in Sydney and it finally opened its doors to golfers in September 2012, after almost five years of permitting and building delays.
The outback town of Kalgoorlie was founded during the Yilgarn-Goldfields Gold Rush in the early 1890s and it lies amidst harsh, somewhat inhospitable, desert terrain in the centre of Western Australia. Goldfields Golf Club members established a primitive course in 1899 so golf has been played in these parts for well over a century. The club is still going strong, operating nowadays from the new Graham Marsh-designed Kalgoorlie Golf Course, which opened in 2010 and is a new entry at position 73.
In 2011, the new design partners of Mike Clayton and Geoff Ogilvy began work on stage one of a three-phase extensive redesign at Bonnie Doon. In late April 2014, play began on six new holes, marking the completion of the second stage of the redesign. Although the final phase is still to complete, which includes tweaks to a few holes that were redesigned in phase 1, we’re pleased to welcome Bonnie Doon back to the Australian Top 100 at position 80. We fully expect that the third oldest club in Sydney will only rise rather higher in subsequent Aussie rankings when the finishing touches are completed.
Three further courses return to our 2014 Top 100 after narrowly missing the cut last time round. Kooindah Waters, Castle Hill and Araluen enter the table at positions 91, 94 and 98 respectively.
For the curious, the courses that dropped out of our rankings are: Cape Schanck, Keysborough, Vines (Ellenbrook), Sandhurst (North), Croydon - Yering Meadows and Twin Waters.
This unique Australian ranking list involved gathering, analysing and processing data from a multitude of sources. If you have an opinion and would like to help shape our future rankings please get in touch. If you’ve played any of our featured Australian courses, we’d be delighted to know what you think, so why not contribute now and post a course review or two?
