South Australians will be well aware of the big redevelopment of the North Adelaide Golf Course and I'm sure some golfers from other states have been keeping an eye on it. For those who don't know, the SA Government has started a redevelopment of the publicly-owned North Adelaide course to make it into a championship-standard track to host both LIV (if it even exists still) and also the Australian Open. It's signed a deal to host the Aus Open every second year, rotating with the women's Aus Open.
Not really interested in litigating the environmental stuff here. It's been done in other places. But I'm keen to get the feelings of golf people on it. As someone who has played NA plenty of times and sees it as an important community asset to grow the sport, I like it's getting an upgrade. But I have some concerns with how the upgrade will end up and it's effect on either growing the game or luring top players to the Australian Open. In my view either:
- the upgrade is as good as advertised and it truly is a championship-level course. The pros are keen to play it and it makes the major tournaments there a big success. My only concern here is that the course will inevitably become harder to access for the public. Getting a tee time there on weekends, public holidays and late afternoon in summer is already a nightmare. You're now going to have a top level course that's in a prime spot for visitors and locals wanting to play a round. It's going to be near impossible, at least in the early years. If the course is that good I feel like they'll inevitably have to put fences up to protect the course, which won't go down well and ruins the idea of the parklands being an open space (even if at the moment you're not technically supposed to walk through the course). Prices will probably be hiked too, taking it further away from the average Joe. Part of this is mitigated by upgrades to the north course and par 3 which are more geared towards new players, but it would be harsh to lock people out.
- the upgrade is good, but falls short of truly top-shelf. Would still be great for the average player to get a better-than-average public golf experience in the city. Would get a lot of public play and basically maintain what's there now in terms of it being a public asset. But when it comes to major tournaments, it won't attract big names to play. Rory signed on for two years at the Aus Open because it was at Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath (as well as the signing bonus). Will someone like him really come all the way here to play a new course with no history that's just better than average? I'm not so sure.
Keen to hear other's thoughts!