Outdoor Setting

DESIGNED TO PLEASE

16 December 2010

In an exclusive interview Graham Marsh describes the excitement of bringing the Bingara Gorge golf course to life.

Never ask a golf designer to name his favourite course.  It's like asking a parent to nominate a preferred child and to Graham Marsh they're all as special as the next.

But as he cut the ribbon on the golf viewing tower at Bingara Gorge, there was no masking the excitement at this small but significant milestone in the evolution of his latest Australian golf course.

"This is going to be a great course," he told the gathered crowd, which included Wollondilly Mayor Michael Banasik and his deputy Robert Khan. "I am excited about this project, really excited."

At Bingara Gorge, Marsh has been given a virtuoso landscape to work with that only nature can provide.  Dramatic gorges and ravines, centuries old rock faces spouting waterfalls and mature bushland, preserved and protected but creating a dense green backdrop to 18 holes of fantastic golf.

Marsh and his architect David Ireland have promised to deliver a golf course unlike any seen in Sydney before.  He calls it minimalistic which immediately brings to mind visions of spare modern architecture but in the golfing lexicon means something altogether different.

"One of the most exciting things about Bingara Gorge is the site itself," says Marsh. "It is a wonderful site that lends itself to golf and we don't want to impose on the site but let it speak for itself.

"There are many spectacular gorges and features which we can make use of, therefore we have been able to apply our minds and produce a very minimalistic style of course.  By that I mean moving the least amount of dirt possible and fitting it to the natural landscape as much as we possibly can. It's what the site deserves."

It is this abundant natural bounty that has led Marsh to pull back the bunkering for which he is renowned.  Typically a Graham Marsh course will include up to 100 bunkers; at Bingara Gorge he has planned for around 65.

"We didn't need so many bunkers," explains Marsh. "There are so many other features out there you don't want one thing to dominate; you want to feel there is a synergy between the grasslands, the lakes, the trees and the gorges, without imposing any one feature."

 "You have the gorge and its relationship to the bushland and another environment which centres around the irrigation lake."

Holes 11, 12, 13 and 14 take their cue from the water, with the 12th designed to maximise views of the lake. The remainder play to the gorge and bushland with Marsh nominating the 16th,  a 137 metre Par 3 where there is the greatest interaction with the gorge, to become the signature hole.

 "The spectacular tee shot, playing from in amongst the sandstone boulders, directs play across the gorge to what is virtually an island green. A beautiful waterfall is just upstream of the line of play.
 
Although short at only 137 metres, great precision will be required to score well as any wayward shot will be punished severely."

Causing a little ripple of surprise is the location of the first tee, a fair distance from the country club which is located to capture players headed homeward from the 18th.  But, as ever, there is method in Marsh's routing; it's a fabulous journey across the gorge to the first tee, one that sets the scene for the golf to come.  And compared with Marsh's Sutton Bay Course in South Dakota, which garnered him US Golf Digest's best new private course in 2004, this is just a short hike. At Sutton Bay it's a 1 ½ mile journey and every minute of it pure delight.

One of the reasons that Marsh finds himself in the enviable position of having four golf courses under design right now, is that he creates the courses that golfers want to play

"You know, golf is a game for a reason - it is fun. Golf enriches people's lives because of the social contact and in this modern age it is probably something we are in need of now more than ever.

"From each set of tees there is a challenge,'' says Marsh. "From the back tees there will be plenty of championship golf but from the forward tees there will be all the challenges you would want if you were just an average player.

"The site has beautiful undulating areas and we've created an incredible mix of holes - dog leg rights and lefts, downhill, uphill, some that are dead flat, some that play across the gorge. We have studied the course in terms of which direction the holes play and the wind factor.

"I think we have a great mix of golf holes and tee placements that are going to provide everybody with an opportunity to play. That is important. When you have people buying into a residential development you want them to be able to have an opportunity to have some success."

Will there be a favourite hole?   He prefers instead to defer to the legendary Alister MacKenzie: "The best hole in the world offers the greatest enjoyment to the greatest number of people."

It's a safe bet that there will be 18 great holes in the running to be Bingara Gorge's best.

 

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