42. Next Trip---Starting in Cabo, and Continuing on to…

Next Trip---Starting in Cabo, and Continuing on to…

In my last posting I left out one picture from the 4^th tee at Quivira looking down at holes 1-4 and 18 (as well as the beach)…take a look below and realize that the rise from the 4^th green is from those holes shown in the photo.

That afternoon (Saturday 4/23) I flew to LAX in order to catch a flight to Sydney.  Yes, Pat and I were just in Australia last month, but remember my lamenting about not being able to play Ellerston?  Well, a game has been in the works at Ellerston for the past several weeks and I built a round-the-world 10-day trip around it. 

Arrived LAX around 5:30pm and had dinner with Henry Lichstein an old fraternity brother and friend for the last 53+ years.  Henry’s wife Janine was down with a cold so it was just the two of us and always good to catch up with Henry.  Then it was back to LAX for a flight departing around 11pm for Sydney…and this will be one of three nights sleeping on a plane on this trip…just think how much $$ I am saving on hotel bills!!!! J

The flight was a good one and we arrived about 15 minutes early at SYD.  After getting my luggage thru customs (and passing the foreign dirt inspection including earning a gold star on my forehead), went over to the domestic terminal to meet my friend who set this up thru a friend of his (in order to protect their identities and keep them from getting all sorts of requests for help at Ellerston, my friend will be referred to as RL and his friend, who has done business with the Packer family for many years, will be referred to as RM).  RL’s flight was on time and we took a taxi to his sister’s house…she lives in a Sydney suburb and was out of town.  Was able to take a good shower and have a two hour nap…both of which were seriously needed.  Then we had lunch and drove to a local airport where we were meeting a charter 2-engine prop that was to take us to the town of Scone (about an hour from Ellerston).  Also meeting us there was John Cornish, a friend of mine from Melbourne who was our 4^th.  RM has a vacation house near Scone and was meeting us at the Scone airport that evening.  After a brief scare when we got to the suburban Sydney airport (no plane there…and call to charter company got an initial reaction of “that charter is scheduled for tomorrow”) they quickly double checked and said the plane would be there in 5 minutes.  The flight north went very well…smooth as can be.

I was surprised at the terrain we flew over (heading north from Sydney).  First half of flight it was heavily forested and then we were over small mountain ranges (more like foothills).  So much for my sense that the Outback encompassed essentially all of Australia’s interior.  John Cornish, RL, and I arrived just before 5pm and RM arrived about 3 minutes later in his car.  Scone is in the middle of horse country.  Being that it was almost sunset, we had to pass on playing a quick 9 at Scone Golf Club…saving it for next trip.

Drive into town took about 5 minutes and our rooms turned out to be much nicer than expected.  We went out for dinner at a local bar, then back to our rooms for the night.

Ellerston Golf, April 26, 2016:  We left Scone at 7:30am and arrived about 8:45.  GPS had taken us on one wrong turn but RM realized the problem (even though he had never been to Ellerston) shortly thereafter and we got back on track.  The final 10 miles of the drive is on a dirt road, and while there is a town called Ellerston, it consists mainly of support staff for the Packer estate.  The estate is simply enormous.  I have heard from other sources that it is about 100 square miles (640,000 acres).  It includes several world-class polo fields and a large set of stables that (from a distance) look as nice as a Four Seasons.  And, of course, we only saw a small portion of the estate. 

The rumor mill in the golf world is filled with all sorts of stories about Ellerston…some true and many apparently false, for example:

·      we had heard that visitors are often rushed in and out of the estate as quickly as possible…NOT TRUE…we were treated to a light breakfast, talked at length with general manager of the estate, and after playing were served a wonderful lunch with the GM, who sincerely solicited our opinions; on the other hand, as had been rumored, we were not asked if we wanted to hit some balls on the driving range;

·      many had said the course gets very little play…well, that one is definitely true; we were the only people on the course all day (in fact I don’t even remember seeing any maintenance staff…they must get their work in the wee small hours); that made it 4 rounds on April 27 and that made it a very busy day, since last year there were total of about 630 rounds played (averaging about 12 rounds/week or 1.7 rounds/day);

·      the course was rumored to have only two sets of tees, is brutal long with difficult carries on many holes; this one is partially true…there are four sets of tees shown on the scorecard (Championship/Back/Middle/Forward) ranging from 7310 yards to 6550 yards; only one tee is set up on each hole, and today the setup was from the Middle tees which are officially about 7120 yards…but we seemed to be a little up on a number of holes so probably played from about 6900-7000 yards…for sure the longest course I have played since Pikewood National (WV) in September 2013; the  longest carry off the tee was about 185 yards from the Middle tees on #7, and that was playing with the wind.

·      the estate was rumored to be very secretive, again partially true;  we had a forecaddie who was fairly open but seemed to be there in part to make sure (in as very very quiet and nice way) we obeyed certain rules; we were allowed to take as many pictures as we wished, but were firmly asked not to post them on social media (hence none included here…but private slide shows seem to be allowed and the line for those forms to the left);  it is important to remember that this is not a “golf club”, there are no “members”…this is the private home/estate of a family, so to my mind, all of the rules and requests seemed very reasonable.

The course is very big and bold, and is the best Greg Norman design I have ever played.  Its “size” (I do not mean length) reminded me in a way of Bethpage Black…as a player you feel small on the course.  It “felt” like a course Greg Norman would design.  The greens are generous in size, very subtle, and filles with well-designed slopes and breaks; they are in no way outrageous.  The bunkers are massive and often very deep.  The fairways are wide are generally strategic in design.  The par 3’s offer superb variety.  Some of the holes are strikingly similar to others I have played elsewhere (non-golfers: this is not unusual at all in great courses)…in particular #10, a 549 yard par 5 with  second and third shots very similar in feel to #13 at ANGC (creek running in front of a green set at an angle best approached from the right…with lots of space available on the right, and a backstop on the left back side of the green).  On the other hand, #16 was the first hole I have played in a very long time that I sense I have never “seen” before.  It is 456 yards from the tips and 436 from Forward tees.  Relatively flat off the tee, it turns sharply left about 250 yards from the tees and has a creek along the left side.  At the corner of the dogleg is a large tree that can affect almost any approach shot.  Finally, about 80 yards short of the green the fairway rises about 25 feet and then drops down about 30 feet just before the green.  From the fairway the rise before the green seems somewhat disconcerting at first, but no question the hole “worked” well, with well played draws (not from me) being rewarded by feeding down to slope into the green.

The countryside surrounding the estate is rugged and breathtaking.  Even without a large body of water or large mountains, Ellerston is one of the most beautiful golf courses I have ever seen.  I would have preferred it to be a little firmer and faster, but it is not overwatered.  It is in superb condition. 

The golf course was built seemingly (and by rumor admittedly) without regard to space limitations and distances between greens and tees.  This allowed architects Greg Norman and Bob Harrison to create 18 magnificent holes in close to ideal individual locations. However, that brings in a real trade-off, by potentially detracting from the overall “flow” of the course and by creating longer than usual distances between green and next tee.  My guess is that almost all rounds are played with carts…it is too long and difficult a walk for almost all golfers.  We all road carts, which were surprisingly gas powered as opposed to electric (I would guess 18 holes with these distances and vertical movements might be too close to the running capacity of electric carts).

Ellerston was completed in 2000 and recently has appeared on the following World 100 lists:

            Golf Magazine 2015 (#73)

            Golf Digest 2016 (#29)

            www.top100golfcourses.co.uk 2016 (#99)

            Planet Golf 2009 (#58), 2014 (#80), and 2015 (#80)

For what it is worth, I think it is the 5^th best course in Australia, and would place it about 60-80 on a World Top 100…basically in line with the above ratings

Several months ago, it was publically announced that the Packer family was selling the golf assets of the Ellerston estate to Crown Casino, the largest casino company in Australia (and majority owned by the Packer family).  It is generally presumed that Crown plans to offer rounds at Ellerston to “high rollers” a la Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.  The GM of Ellerston made it clear that the golf operations would be changing but that the planning stage was not completed.  I believe they will have to add some shorter tees, but that these changes should have almost no impact on the integrity of the course and its design.

I played well and had a 43 – 43 = 86; not too bad considering it played like a par 77 or so for this old man!  Birdied 17 (524 yard par 5) by sticking a nine iron to 2 feet. 

Overall, this was a great way to complete the Golf Magazine World Top 100 Ever list.  There have been 19 GM World Top 100 lists and I have now competed all 19 by playing all the 194 courses that have appeared on one or more of these lists.  It was good to get this done at such a magnificent place.

We could have showered but wanted to get to the plane so that we could fly (and RM could drive as much as possible) prior to darkness.  The drive back to Scone airport took one hour (including a wasted 5 minutes when your truly mistakenly thought he had left his laptop behind).  The flight back was as smooth as the flight the previous day and we all left Ellerston with a wonderful feeling.  We landed just before darkness set in…perfect timing.  John Cornish dropped me off at SYD airport…it was time to move on to Hainan Island, China.  A great day!!

Mission Hills Haikou—Lava Fields, April 27, 2016:  Must say that I was a tired (but happy) puppy when I boarded the plane for the overnight flight to Hong Kong.  The flight arrived early and I had a layover of about 5-6 hours.  At 11:30am I boarded a Hainan Airlines flight to Haikou which arrived just before its scheduled time of 12:45pm.

Hainan Island lies off China’s southern coast in the South China Sea and is just east of Vietnam.  I first visited Hainan Island in mid May 2014 during my final trip to finish the 2013 Golf Magazine World 100 to play Shanqin Bay, the outstanding Coore-Crenshaw design completed in 2013.  I loved SB and have wanted to return to play it again, but over the past 18 months, two scheduled visits were cancelled.  First, my planned early 2015 trip was cancelled when I had two coronary stents inserted in November 2014.  The second time, in October 2015, I cancelled my visit to allow me to play some other new courses in Asia that had appeared on updated World Top 100 lists.

As I mentioned in a previous post, and unnamed source provided me with an 8^th source for World 100 Lists (Golf Week UK) earlier this year.  Those two lists published in 2010 and 2011 added four courses to my task: County Loth (Ireland), Abu Dhabi National UAE), Alwoodley (England), and Mission Hills-Lava Fields (China).  I played County Louth several weeks ago, was already scheduled to play Alwoodley in late May (it is also on the MacWood list), and when the chance to play Ellerston arose, I scheduled a round the world trip to allow me to play Lava Fields , Abu Dhabi National, the courses in Cabo, and certain others.

Lava Fields was designed by Brian Curley and opened several years ago at the second Mission Hills facility in China.  The first is close to Hong Kong and opened about 15 years ago.  It now has 12 courses.  The Haikou facility was launched subsequently and has 10 courses. Haikou is at the north tip of Hainan Island which is a “designated” major resort/vacation area of China (ahh, the marvels of central planning).

I was met at Haikou airport by a representative of Mission Hills and shortly thereafter boarded a shuttle bus for a 20-25 minute ride to the resort.  I was met by Wendy Chen, Asst Director of Clubhouse Services who then introduced me to Michael Qin, GM of the Golf Club.  Michael and I had exchanged many emails over the past 18 months due to my prior attempts to get to Lava Fields and it was good to meet him in person.

I teed off around 3:20pm.  Lava Fields is a very good course filled with seemingly hundreds of bunkers (I did not count them but would guess there are around 170-200).  It is a classic tour quality course with good length (7475 yards) and lots of difficult pin positions available on greens with some fairly severe slopes.  However, somewhat as I expected, it lacks the charms and subtleties of the great designs.  The course was fairly empty (I played through one foursome) and finished in about 2:40).  I hit the ball very well and had a 38 – 41 = 79. 

After the round, had a good shower and met Joey Garon, the GM of Shanqin Bay and his assistant Lisa for a wonderful Chinese dinner at Mission Hills.  We talked mostly about what has been going on at Shanqin Bay and the golf world over the past two years.  After dinner they dropped me off at my hotel and it was great to sleep in a real bed!

Looking forward to returning to Shanqin Bay tomorrow!!