The Missing Links: Seaview Golf Club, Cottesloe, Western Australia

Sunday 11 February 2018

Seaview Golf Club, Cottesloe, Western Australia

www.seaviewgolfclub.com.au

Blue tees par 71, SSS (ACR) 70, 5564 metres
Red tees par 72, SSS (ACR) 73, 4998 metres

Today was the start of the Australian odyssey - seven true links courses in three weeks. We started at Seaview Golf Club which is at Cottesloe on the beautiful coastline north of Perth, Western Australia. The golf course opened in 1909 and was designed by founder members NC Fowlie and Peter Anderson. A Scot from Forfar, Anderson won the British Amateur Championship in 1893 which he followed by tying for 19th place in the Open championship in the same year. Both were played at Prestwick, an iconic true links course. Initially the course was owned by the Cottesloe Golf club which moved to a new course in 1931, when Seaview Golf Club was formed.

A view of the Indian Ocean from the 7th green

We played Seaview on a warm and sunny summer day but buffeted by the Fremantle Doctor, the nickname for the strong south-westerly breeze which blows in the afternoon. It is a nine hole course which disappointingly is not really a true links course. Although by the sea with lovely views of the Indian Ocean and built on sandy soil the course does not have hard and fast running fairways and has a substantial number of Norfolk pines throughout. The greens are slow and attempting a running shot inevitably leaves the ball short. The bunkers are shallow and not as challenging as the revetted bunkers of a true links course. There are no truly memorable holes - most are fairly short and there are no doglegs.

The par 3 8th

Worth playing? A fun holiday course if you are in the area but don't go out of your way - it is not a true links.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Links Project

There are 246 true links golf courses in the world and this blog is a record of our attempt to play all of them. My husband Ron and I are keen golfers and I came up with the idea of this project after he gave me the book by George Peper and Malcolm Campbell 'True Links' which lists them all.

The commonest question we are asked about our project is 'How do you define a true links course?' This will be debated by aficionados for long after we have (hopefully) completed our quest and there will never be a correct answer. The strict definition is from the British Golf Museum:

1. The course must be beside a river estuary

2. It must offer partial or occasional views of the sea

3. It must have few trees

4. It must have numerous bunkers

5. It must have nines that run out and back, the front heading to a far point and the back returning to the clubhouse

Peper and Campbell defined their list as follows:

Terrain - how close is the course to the sea? Do the fairways run fast and hard? Do the greens favour a run-on approach? How open is the site? How natural? Is there a freedom from trees? Is the invasion of gorse and brush controlled? How light is the environmental footprint on the land?

Turf - is there a sand base? What grasses are dominant on the fairways and greens? Is the rough managed ( creating biodiversity for flora and fauna)? How well does the course drain?

Weather - how exposed is the site to the elements? What are the typical wind conditions? Does the course play hard and fast all year round? Must temporary greens and tees be used in winter? Is the course susceptible to winter closure?

Peper and Campbell included courses which supplied the correct answers to most of these questions. But however defined, to me the poem by Sir John Betjeman encapsulates the feeling of links golf.