Growing up a rugby league fan and a loyal supporter of the Parramatta Eels, I long thought the best thing to ever come out of Gerringong was the legendary player Mick Cronin.
Cronin famously was selected to represent Australia on a Kangaroo Tour to England while still playing first grade for his beloved hometown. He finished that Tour as the highest point scorer, but it was several years before he was enticed to head to the “big smoke” and play for Parramatta. It was there where he remained for the rest of his playing career, while still living in the little south coast beach town.
Today, Gerringong’s favourite son continues to run the iconic Cronin’s Gerringong Hotel/Motel, which is just a few minutes’ drive from the golf club, which easily stands alongside the fantastic local beaches as one of the town’s major attractions for visitors.
Situated between the seaside hotspots of Gerringong and Gerroa, the course lies on dramatically undulating land overlooking the beautiful Walkers Beach and is surrounded by rolling hills which are home to plentiful stocks of dairy cattle.
Standing out the front of the clubhouse – which offers some of the best ocean views to be found anywhere along the NSW coast – you can see almost every hole across the links-like terrain, which slopes markedly down and away from the headlands to the north and south and into the heart of the property.
The layout is routed across what was a dairy farm, known as the Beachlands Estate, which was sold to Kiama Council in the late 1970s. In 1981, the council granted the newly formed Gerringong Golf Club a 12-month lease, getting the ball rolling for the little club.
The 1st hole plunges steeply towards the green, with the fairway cut in two by a tongue of rough. (PHOTO: Brendan James)
Club members Russell Ford and Griff Miller staked out a nine-hole layout which was mown by local farmers on their tractors. It wouldn’t be the last time volunteers offered their time or others donated machinery and materials to ensure the future of the fledging club. It certainly helped and in 1985 the club took up an offer from the Council to purchase the land.
The club then received course design advice from prolific architect Al Howard, but he was not engaged to enhance the existing holes or to extend the layout to 18 holes. The club instead invested in the construction of four irrigation dams and the back nine holes were designed and constructed by two members, Ted Wright and Don Sharpe, who worked voluntarily for five years to complete the course extension to 18 holes.
The original front nine holes were rebuilt in 1992 and all the greens were redone with Bermuda Tifdwarf, which was purchased from the Sussex Inlet Bowling Club.
Eight years after purchasing the land and overcoming several wet weather events and a trickling flow of finances, the course was opened for play in May 1993.
I remember playing the course for the first time in the early summer months of that year and being impressed by the view. I also left the course feeling it had potential to be something quite memorable. It was raw and difficult to score on, particularly in the ever-present breeze.
The condition of the layout back in 1993 was pretty poor, with vast areas of the undulating fairways struggling to attract any grass growth and the greens were slow and bumpy, all of which was not surprising due to a lack of funds and most of the maintenance coming from volunteers. Thankfully, the club’s first greenkeeper was employed in early 1994 and the evolution of the course began.
The greatest improvements to the Gerringong course have come across the past two decades under the guidance of long-time course superintendent Brad Huender, who oversaw the gradual replacement of the 18 tifdwarf-covered greens; the smooth-rolling A4 bentgrass surfaces are now the toast of the course. Numerous greens (with more to come) and all the tees have also gradually been rebuilt, all of which have elevated the playing experience at Gerringong.
The 514-metre par-5 4th hole can be best described as a beautiful beast. (PHOTO: Brendan James)
The limited course construction budget determined that only the most necessary earth-moving – primarily for tees and greens – was undertaken. The design was completely dictated by the dramatic terrain and ultimately gave rise to completely natural “one-off” holes you simply won’t find anywhere else.
A simple but perfect example of this greets players on the opening hole. The 373-metre par-4 1st leads you away from the clubhouse towards the ocean and, for the first two thirds of the journey to the green, the going is pretty easy, with a welcoming wide fairway. But the hole then plunges steeply towards the green with the fairway cut in two by a tongue of rough. I suspect this simple but effective element of the course’s setup is to ward off long hitters having a crack at the green in favourable conditions. The best play anyway is to hit your approach shot from the crest of the hill to avoid a challenging downhill lie.
Gerringong’s magnificent 6th (foreground) and 4th holes. (PHOTO: Brendan James)
Where the 1st hole poses questions of club and shot selection from the tee and fairway, the opener to the back nine is all about shot placement. In all my travels, I don’t recall ever seeing a short par-4 with such an acute dogleg as the 280-metre 10th hole. Having played slightly downhill from the tee, the fairway then turns more than 90 degrees right (it’s perhaps a 100-degree turn) around a dense clump of trees and heads across the side of a hill. The white out-of-bounds stakes to the right of the fairway are enough of a deterrent for long hitters to simply try to find a good spot in the fairway to pitch into the green from.
In my opinion, the best trio of holes at Gerringong starts at the 329-metre par-4 3rd hole – a left-to-right dogleg which demands a tee shot to be carried over the edge of a dam before climbing uphill to a green terraced on the side of a hill.
The 514-metre par-5 4th hole can be best described as a beautiful beast. The tee is perched high above Walkers Beach and the hole doglegs left-to-right following the arc created by the back of the beach. Thick coastal scrub is all that separates the fairway from the sand. The aforementioned dam on the 3rd hole cuts right across the 4th fairway and depending on your length from the tee, it is worth considering a lay-up from the tee, particularly into a southerly wind. Two more dams lie short of the bunkerless green and only the game’s longest hitters would even contemplate going for this target in two shots, and even then it would have to be with a strong northerly tailwind. I have played at Gerringong many times in the past three decades. I have parred this hole once and never birdied it … what a beautiful beast.
Ever seen a short par-4 with such an acute dogleg as Gerringong’s 280-metre 10th hole? (PHOTO: Brendan James)
The 5th hole – a sharp dogleg right par-4 of 334 metres – leads you away from the beach and up a hill to one of the highest points on the course. Again, the green is terraced into the side of the hill and the view from the back of this green over the course and the ocean is worth the green fee alone. Two refurbished bunkers cut into the front of the green are deep and best avoided.
While the holes which lie closest to the beach quite rightly gain most of the acclaim from visiting golfers, it is the 425-metre par-5 11th which should arguably be touted as Gerringong’s finest hole. Lengthened and changed to a par-5 only recently, the hole lies hard against the course’s southern boundary with a neighbouring farm and features a fairway which slopes markedly down from left-to-right as it climbs gently from the tee. Once over the crest of the hill, the sloping fairway turns slightly right and plummets down to the edge of a lake with the green lying just beyond the water. Any player daring to find this green in two blows will have to do so by hitting their second shot from a steep downhill lie, knowing the ball flight from such a lie will be low, bringing the water well into play. It is a cracking short par-5; so much temptation to take it on can easily result in as many eagle threes as double and triple bogey sevens and eights. For mine, that makes it a terrific hole and one of the real highlights of playing here.
These days a trip to Gerringong for this old Eels fan is about far more than possibly spotting my footy hero Mick Cronin. It is about having plenty of fun on the golf course and taking on the challenging shots this hilly, seaside layout seems to present at every turn.
The 11th hole is a cracking short par-5. (PHOTO: Brendan James)
FACT FILE
LOCATION: Crooked River Rd, Gerringong, NSW.
CONTACT: (02) 4234 3333.
WEBSITE: www.gerringonggolf.com.au
DESIGNERS: Members (1985).
PLAYING SURFACES: Kikuyu (fairways); Penn A-4 bentgrass (greens).
COURSE SUPERINTENDENT: Brad Huender.
PGA PROFESSIONAL: Shane Cochrane.
GREEN FEES: $40 (18 holes, Monday to Thursday), $50 (Friday to Sunday).
MEMBERSHIPS: Adult, Intermediate (22-25 years) and Junior memberships are now open. Check the club’s website for further details.
The 12th at Gerringong. Not a bad-looking layout all-round for an old daily farm … (PHOTO: Brendan James)
© Golf Australia. All rights reserved.