St Michaels GC

[AndyP]

What are peoples thoughts on this course? I'm pretty sure there are plenty of us who have played it now, including a bunch of us from the north.

Fantastic views, but is the course itself that good?
Although I didn't play from the completely blind tees, they just seem like tricks to me and not clever design. Of course, it's going to be tough if you can't see where you are meant to be hitting.


Hopefully with the tree removal program about to start at St Mick's, they will hold their place.Tree removal? Tell me more.
It looked like they had been doing a lot of drainage work as there were sand lines across a few fairways. There was also a few machines around the top of the hill, plus some work being done on tee blocks.

[Moe Norman]

apparently got hit heavily by erosion didn't they?

It's a solid course, without being spectacular, which is a shame given its location.

If it were in brisbane, most of us would rave about it.

[Andrew]

When I first played it, about 25 years ago in a school comp, there were very few trees/bushes. Holes like the par 4 16th were very much risk/reward because you could see most of the fairway & choose how much of the gully you wanted to bite off. Over the last 20 years, the bushes have grown up to stifle the links characteristics of the course. The Kikuyu fairways haven’t helped either.

Many of the larger bushes will be removed, widening some holes & allowing the breeze to play a bigger part.

I’ve always believed that St Michael’s is ranked far to high. If it was in a country location, it would not even make the top 100 at all. My main problem with St Mick’s is their green complexes. The greens & bunkering are extremely poor. If they had the money for a major redesign, I would think 5th, 11th & 12th would be the only holes to hold their current look. None of the greenside bunkering, or unbunkered topography, encourage a shot from one side of the fairway or a particular type of shot. Just because most of the greens are of a simple shape doesn’t mean that there can be no strategy. Most of the older seaside courses in Scotland (that I’ve played) have similar sized & shaped greens, but still have wonderful strategy.

The site is nowhere near as good as NSWGC, but if they had employed Eric Apperly (who was working at NSWGC at about the same time) to route the course, it could have been so much better.

That being said, apart from some poor maintenance over the last few years, it’s still fun to play.

[Grunt]

Supposed to play there this Friday. Was looking forward to it, had not played there for over a year. Hopefully foot will heal in time. [-o<