Is this the hardest golf course in the world?
The Roaring Forties howl across the nine hole course on Bass Strait’s Flinders Island. The wind is so strong that many of the trees are permanently bowed. Perhaps it is because of the wind that this course has only been parred once in its 40 year history. Club champion and amateur course record holder, Gerald Dilger, said the locals will play in all weather.
“But once the wind gets around 30 or 40 knots you won’t get many good scores,” he said. “Even the pros will hit 80 or 90 when it really starts to blow.”
Maybe the Flinders Island course is such a challenge because once you are in the rough you are in deep trouble. The bush edging the course is dense, and there are places where the fairway is narrow, really narrow, and the greens are tiny targets. There is always an old man crow sitting in a nearby tree with a wheezy laugh, just waiting for an unfortunate shot. It used to be common practice to carry a shotgun in your golf buggy. It was there to help you retrieve your ball when a crow stole it from the fairway!
The course undulates over grass covered dunes, through scrub so thick that the wallabies have made their own permanent tracks to get from tee to tee. The local players call this scrub ‘tiger country’. Once your ball is in there,it is gone forever.
This par 71 course (you play the nine holes twice) always plays three or four more than handicaps on any other course.In fact, the only time the course has been parred was when visiting professional Justin Spironi hit 69 in the 1992 Pro-Am.
Gerald smiles as he remembers the day.
“I don’t reckon the wind was blowing that day,” he said.
The first hole, a 395 metre par 4, has you standing against the wind as it blows straight off Bass Strait and across your line.The last, a 211 metre par 3, can have you teeing off straight into a Roaring Forties westerly, or it can be as calm as the eye of a hurricane. It is a tee that plays anywhere between a sand wedge and a driver.
And yet the local golfers claim they play better when the wind is blowing. They say the wind makes them concentrate harder.
“Besides, the wind isn’t really blowing until there are fish on the greens,” Gerald said
