The Course
Rosny Park Public Golf Course
Par: 66, Length: 4454m
Preview
Rosny Park Public Golf Course is situated a power fade away from Eastlands shopping centre (depending which direction you fade the ball in). It used to be an 18 hole golf course and was the former site for Royal Hobart Golf Club, I believe.
I first became familiar with “Royal Rosny” when I was starting out in golf during the mid-eighties. From 1986-89 I headed over there for after school golf representing New Town High School. Our school won this trophy for each of these four years but always tussled with the Clarence High boys comprising Andrew Wiggins, Nathan Gatehouse and Grant Dale, among others. New Town High were represented throughout by myself, Peter Johns, Scott Cowen, Michael McGeary and in later years Royce Brougham and Andrew Bonsey. We all used to pile into the school minibus or Mr Andy Wilson’s camper van after school on a Wednesday I think. Johnsy always seemed to win the year long consistency award because he didn’t seem to muck around as much. A common trick we used to play on other groups was to “relocate” the flag on the original 6th hole to the other side of the green after playing the hole. From the fairway down below you didn’t know that the hole wasn’t near the flag until you got up to the green. By this time the offenders were on their way up the 7th hole and retribution had to wait until the following week.
The course is only nine holes now and you don’t have to cross any of the roads. Previously the course was in three parts with holes 1-5 and 17-18 on the first part, holes 6-9 in the 2nd part and 10-16 on the 3rd part. Healthy walks were required to travel in between each section of the course. See the attached old scorecard and map. They’ve now managed to fit all nine holes in the area that holes 1-5 and 17-18 were located. Prior to heading back there, I’m unsure how they could achieve this. I can only assume that they have put in some short par 3’s.
Review
17/12/2009
I went and played nine holes last night and now I know how they put nine holes into the space of seven. The course is essentially same as before except they have slotted in two very short par 3’s into the mix. In order to achieve this they have shortened the 1st and the old 17th.
The 1st is a reachable version of its former self and the 2nd is a new short par 3 playing up behind where the old 1st green was (or maybe it is the old 1st green?). Holes 3, 4, 5 & 6 are the same as the old 2nd through to 5th holes, taking you to the far side of the course. The 7th is another reachable par 4 and is a shortened version of the old par 5 17th. The 8th is another new short par 3 playing to the old 17th green while the 9th is the old 18th. The 18th used to be a par 4, so I’m not sure why it’s now been designated a par 5. I assume that Rosny just wanted to artificailly increase their par a little bit (par 32 is pretty embarrassing) and make people feel good about themselves on the last hole, hoping that this would bring them back the next week.
It only cost me $5 to play late in the afternoon which I happily paid to the man sitting in the car near the 1st tee (a variation on the honesty box). For this I would have been entitled to play a full eighteen, but I only had time for nine. There are two different sets of men’s tees with the white front tees for the first nine and the longer blue markers for the back nine. Strangely the hole measurements on the card are identical for both nines and it made it difficult to know how far the holes really were. I wasn’t real confident in the hole measurements and it wasn’t clear where they were taken from. I don’t feel I’d get any benefit of playing the 2nd nine off the back markers – it’s essentially the same course with an extra club here and there.
The first hole
I’d forgotten how much of a slope the land is on at Rosny. The ball rolls across the fairways on many of the holes, but most noticeably on the 3rd, 5th and 9th. The greens were not fast, but I found that chip shots seemed to roll on quite a bit. It took me a while to get the speed of the greens. There are quite a few contours in the greens which need to be considered when putting and chipping. There aren’t many easy putts on the course.
All in all the course is fairly well looked after, considering. There are 100m markers on all holes (except par 3’s) but given how short they play, they are pretty much irrelevant for the longer golfer. I wouldn’t seek this course out to play at, but if asked to play there I wouldn’t baulk at it either. It’s a nice enough course and really accessible for the public golfer. I would have thought that Rosny wouldn’t attract as many players as it used to now that many other golf courses let non members play, but I’ve been told that this isn’t the case. It used to be that if you weren’t a member of a golf club then Rosny was your only option. Now you can pretty much play at any of the country courses and even at places like Kingston and Claremont on the appropriate days. I think the days of the public golf course are gone in Hobart. Still, if you don’t want all the pomp and ceremony of most golf clubs and you want to be able to play in your Steve Irwin khakis, then head out to Rosny.
Something of interest is the local rules. Usually these have things like “The screens on the 1st and 3rd tees are immovable obstructions …” or “relief must be taken from Ground Under Repair ….”. Not at Rosny. Their scorecard has a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo and refers to players as plaintiffs and defendants! I can only assume that the Clarence City Council has resorted to this in an effort to better defend themselves in court.
Best Hole:
Rosny doesn’t really have a lot of holes to write home about. They are nice enough, but none really jump out. I guess the par 3 fourth and sixth holes challenge you in the conventional sense and require a good tee shot to ensure a par. The 4th is especially punishing if your tee shot ends up at the bottom of the hill to the right of the green.
Worst Hole:
I think the two new short par 3’s are just too short and are obviously afterthoughts. While the 9th is not a bad hole, there is no way it should be a par 5. I think for this reason it is the poorest hole on the course. However if it were a par 4 then it would be the best.
The round
16 December 2009
Score: 35 (+2), Greens Hit: 6/9, Putts: 16, Fairways Hit: 4/5
I was to be playing in a three day golf competition which starts off with a qualifying nine holes at Rosny (the Sunday Sprint). Because I haven’t played there for almost twenty years, I thought I’d better go familiarise myself and headed off there after work on a Wednesday. NOTE: Since then I have found out that the Mat Goggin All City Golf Championship has been cancelled due to lack of trying on the organisers behalf participants. Anyway, that’s a different story – back to me.
I made a regulation par 4 on the first by sinking a rather large 2nd putt after busting the first one about 5m past the hole – apparently my memories of slow greens weren’t accurate. I air-mailed the short par 3 2nd with a wedge (which I did later on the 8th as well) and didn’t manage to get up and down. Damn these new holes are short!
I recalled the best strategy to tackle the par 4 third from when I used to play there in the eighties. It didn’t occur to me that I hit the ball about 50 metres further now and was lucky to find it in US Open style rough on the line I took. The ball was closer to the edge of the Tasman Highway than the edge of the fairway. Still I managed to thrash it out next to the green but again didn’t anticipate the amount of run I would get on the chip shot. Bogey number 2. I quickly followed this up with another failed up and down on the par 3 4th. After cracking a drive down the 5th and pitching on, I three-putted for four straight bogies. Not good. But if I was familiar with the course I figure I would have been even par as I’d had really easy chips and putts, so I wasn’t overly concerned.
I turned it around on the downhill par 3 6th where I hit 8 iron into about 10 feet. My second putt from about 8 feet went in the middle of the hole for par (note to self – “The greens still aren’t as slow as you think”). A good bloke called Martin and his mate called me up on the 7th and I didn’t take the time to look at the card for the hole measurements. I just saw a flag off in the distance and pulled driver. I didn’t catch it very well (bit out of the heel with a weak fade) but it was up the guts. When I got to the crest of the hill, I realised that a well hit driver isn’t the correct club choice. However, my mis-hit was on the edge of the green and chipped to a foot for an easy birdie.
Using my improved chipping I also got up and down on the next from just off the back. I thought I’d sent my drive on the 9th too far out to the right onto the adjacent 3rd fairway, but was happy to see it come rolling back down the slope to be 100 metres out. Played for and got. I was a bit surprised to see that this hole is now listed as a par 5 at only 390 metres. I hit wedge just over the flag but missed the “eagle” putt. Tapped it in for another birdie and a round of 35 (+2).
Worst Shots:
My drive up the third drawing on experiences as a fourteen year old was not very smart. I drove it through the fairway by a good 50 metres. When I thought about it I should have been aiming a good 45 degrees left of where I was.
Best shots:
The 53 degree wedge I hit from the resultant poor drive (described above) was out of thick hay. I aimed well right of the hole to compensate for the ball being above my feet and the fact the rough would wrap around the club. I got a fair bit of club on it and ended up only a couple of feet off the green. Before I hit it I was thinking that the ball might not actually get out of the bad lie, so for degree of difficulty this shot wins.
