Freycinet Golf Club
Par: 36 (nine holes) Length: 2940 m
Green Fees: $15
Freycinet Golf Club is only a Driver, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 3 Wood, 4 iron (lost ball), drop, 4 iron, pitch from Coles Bay on Tasmania’s East Coast.
It has fantastic views of the world renowned Hazards - but only if you go during daylight hours. Unfortunately we did not and we rocked up at about 7.45pm. We managed to play 5 and a half holes and walked the rest. On the way back to our accommodation we passed the search party that had been deployed to look for us. Obviously they were non-golfers who had (incorrectly) assumed that light is a requirement for golf.
I was pleasantly surprised by the length of Freycinet’s golf holes and the fact that it is a par 36 – and not one of those soft par 36’s. I must admit to being used to playing Tasmania’s short and easy nine hole courses of which we have too many of. Both of the first two holes were a touch on the short side but neither would be considered gimme pars. Almost all of the other holes were of the length that you would find at Metropolitan courses.
Freycinet has a very peculiar course design with a par 4 not occurring until the 6th.
As you can see on the below scorecard, the first 5 holes consist of three par 5’s and two par 3’s – very unique. I can only assume that the lay of the land dictated this design as you wouldn’t do this intentionally, surely. I’d rather see only two par 5’s and two par 3’s per nine rather than three apiece as was the case at Freycinet.
Hole | Par | Score | Length (m) | Index |
1st | 5 | 6 | 436 | 7/8 |
2nd | 3 | 3 | 105 | 17/18 |
3rd | 5 | 5 | 505 | 5/6 |
4th | 3 | 3 | 180 | 15/16 |
5th | 5 | 5 | 482 | 13/14 |
6th | 4 | 375 | 3/4 | |
7th | 4 | 315 | 9/10 | |
8th | 3 | 155 | 11/12 | |
9th | 4 | 387 | 1/2 | |
36 | 2940 m |
Best Hole:
I’m not going to commit to this one yet, as I haven’t played all nine holes yet. Of the 5 holes I did play I’d say the par 5 3rd was the toughest, but this was mainly because I didn’t have a clue where I was going for either of the first two shots. I’ll update this post when I finish my round – hopefully in the next six months.
Worst Hole:
The 2nd reminded me of a few stupid holes I have seen over the years that you wouldn’t see on 18 hole golf courses. Yes, you have quite a slope on the front of the 2nd green. Yes, it does make club selection difficult. No!, you shouldn’t put a false front on the green and then place the flag right next to it. I think all greenkeepers should have maps of their greens and have marked on them places that flags should never go. It was probably just a bad flag position rather than a bad hole.
The other candidate for worst hole would be the 1st which at 436 metres is too short to be called a par 5. Even though water hazards are on both the right and left, these don’t really come into play for the longer hitter on either the 1st or 2nd shots. I’m a fan of easing into a game of golf, but I don’t like to see the course give away shots because the par isn’t right. Having said that, I made bogey, so how can I talk?
The round
Date: 28 January 2010 (happy birthday Renee)
Score: 1 over for 5 holes – called off due to bad light.
I knew we weren’t going to fit in a full nine holes before we teed off, but I thought we’d have fun trying. I even forward dated the green fee receipts to the following day (just in case I found some time) because I didn’t think it was fair to pay $15 for 45 minutes. I never did come back, so Freycinet got good value out of us.
I played the first hole in regulation for a foreign course – that is, got on for the regulation 3 shots and promptly 3 putted because I had no idea of the speed of the greens or the break that they would take.
As mentioned above, the short par three 2nd has a severe slope on the front of the green where the flag was precariously placed. Taking this into account, I decided air-mailing the green would be the best strategy. I erred on leaving my chip short of the hole so that I didn’t flirt with the severe front shelf of the green, but luckily putted the ball in for par.
The third is a par 5 dogleg to the left with the first part of the hole the only bit visible from the tee. I aimed directly at a house at the end of the fairway and let my driver loose with a tailwind. Mark (from the accommodation we stayed in at Coles Bay) told me that he was going to a BBQ on this evening in a house next to the 4th hole that you could hit a wayward ball into. Or perhaps he meant the 3rd? In the bad light on a foreign course, I couldn’t see the ball land and thought that it was going to hit the roof of the house. As it turned out I was a good 30 metres short, straight, long and in the middle of the fairway - the house never came into play. The 2nd shot into this hole is slightly uphill and blind, so I just played a long iron up the middle. I assume that a good fairway wood could have reached but I had no idea where I was aiming. I pitched on and two putted never looking like getting a birdie.
By now me and Mitch were running in between holes as the light faded even more. I played a 4 iron into a ridiculously strong cross breeze on the par three 4th. I thought it was in the left hand trees and was surprised to find it just short of the green in the middle. Two things were obvious to me now:
1) the wind is very strong; and
2) bloody hell it’s dark.
I chipped it stone dead for par. I hoped the people in the nearby house were watching that shot but chances are they wouldn’t have seen us without MCG style floodlights.
Onto the 5th and a drive that I thought was going to hang out in the right hand trees was brought back to the middle of the fairway on the wind. By now you couldn’t see ball sized objects more than 50 metres away. I hit my second shot with my 3 wood into a clump of trees short and left of the 5th green. The clump of trees turned out to be a water hazard. I didn’t even bother looking for my ball and instead figured out where I was entitled to drop for a penalty. I then played a wedge onto the green allowing for a good 10 metres of drift with the wind. Even though I was only 100 metres or so away from the green, I couldn’t see it land. I putted what ended up being a 5 footer in for another par.
I must admit at this stage I felt like the bishop from Caddy Shack playing the round of his life in a thunderstorm. I wasn’t going to get struck by lightning on the last hole though. The worst that was going to happen was that we’d get lost and eaten by Tasmanian Devils with facial tumours. Seeing as I’m writing this blog, you can tell that this didn’t happen.
After darting back to the 6th tee, I hit a tee shot that I couldn’t see. It felt right and I thought I saw something go out that way. Really I didn’t have a clue. I tried to pace off 250 metres which is how long I assumed the ball had gone. I couldn’t see anything. Given that I couldn’t find my ball at first on the previous hole and it was in the fairway, things weren’t looking good. I looked for my allotted 5 minutes but couldn’t see anything. I looked up at the 6th green to try to figure out what to do. Nothing. I couldn’t see the flag. We still had three holes to go.
I made the unpopular call that we would have to call of the game. We were on the far side of the course. It was so dark that finding our way back to the car wasn’t a sure thing. We walked the last 3 holes with Mitch playing some shots from the middle of each fairway. Animals were coming out and we were struggling to find the paths between greens and tees.
Best Shot:
The pitching wedge into the 5th was pretty special. I was in the rough, I had no idea how far I was away from the green, how strong the wind was and it was ridiculously dark. Some sceptics may say that this was just dumb luck that I hit it to 5 feet, but I prefer to think that I factored in all the adversity against me and called upon my years of practice to play a great shot. Or it was luck.
Worst Shot:
Probably the decision to tee off at all on this night should be drawn into question?
But of the shots I played, the 2nd shot into the first hole was particularly poor. I had driven the ball up the centre of the fairway (although not out of the middle). I worked out I had about 190 metres to the hole and decided that a pull hook 3 iron 50 or more metres to the left of the green would leave me with the best approach in. Good golf.
I’m looking forward to playing a full nine holes at Freycinet in the not too distant future, preferably in broad daylight. I guess I can say that I’ve played the course, but can only add 5 more holes to my quest to play all 801 of Tasmania’s golf holes.
Like I really needed another reason to go back to Coles Bay. The accommodation is already booked.
