australia Geelong's Course Will Shrink

One of Australia’s best-known golf developers aims to downsize the oldest golf course in Victoria.

I'm talking about Geelong Golf Club, which is in the town of Geelong, about 40 miles southwest of Melbourne. The club was founded in 1892, fell on financial hard times just after the turn of the 21st century, and went out of business in 2004. Its 18-hole course will be reduced to nine holes, along with a golf academy that’s to be created by the PGA of Australia.

Links Group has owned the 115-acre club since 2003. The company’s redevelopment plan calls for 191 single-family houses and 120 housing units for seniors, along with a “big box” store.

Geelong will be Links Group’s third golf community in greater Melbourne. The company owns Sandhurst Club, which features a 36-hole complex designed by Peter Thomson and Ross Perrett, and Sanctuary Lakes, which has an 18-hole, Greg Norman-designed course. Both clubs anchor large communities (1,850 houses at Sandhurst, 2,500 at Sanctuary Lakes) that haven’t yet sold out.

Two other Links Group communities have been in the works for several years, delayed by a sluggish housing market and difficulties in securing approvals.

The company owns 700 acres in Airlie Beach, Queensland, where it plans to build a community called Whitsunday Springs. The community, which was approved in 2006 (Links Group had planned to break ground on it in 2009), will have up to 2,200 residences, a 200-room hotel, and an 18-hole golf course.

And, as it’s doing at Geelong, Links Group plans to downsize the 18-hole golf course at Illawarra Golf Club in Madden Plains, New South Wales. The course will be shrunk to nine holes and become the centerpiece of Illawarra Ridge, a community with houses, a hotel, and a recreation center.

The golf courses at Whitsunday Springs and Illawarra Ridge will be designed by Graham Papworth, an architect based in Hastings Point, New South Wales.

The new nine at Geelong Golf Club will be tailored to beginners. Links Group hasn’t yet identified the designer, but last summer it told the Age, an Australian newspaper, that it’ll be “a professional golf architect” who’s been “endorsed” by the PGA of Australia.