Southern Travels............

Club members Paddy & Jane Helmore recently completed a golfing sojourn to the deep south and their report on the courses played is attached:

Sunday – Hawea Golf Club: an interesting mix of 9 holes with some par 4’s ranging from a short 250m up to 400m and a long 499m par 5 into the southerly. The greens often had some big gradients. Overall it was a pleasant enough walk and not too serious.
Monday – Alexandra Golf Club: a beautiful day in Central for the 18 holes. A good variety of holes with some tightness and length on quite a few of the holes. Looking forward to returning there for the NZ Left-handed champs in 2011.
Tuesday – Tokanui Golf Club: located overlooking the ocean just past Fortrose at the Invercargill end of the Catlins this course claims to be the southernmost 9 hole course in the world (note: the Stewart Island course is only 6 holes). Lots of hills and humps and hollows combined with magnificent views make this an interesting experience even with the benign conditions we experienced (hate to play there in much of a wind though!!!). A lot of fun with many blind shots requiring guesswork as to distance. Good course for the CV.
Wednesday – Invercargill Golf Club at Otatara: lovely course and well deserving of its reputation. Good concentration required to avoid a big score. Would certainly play here again.
Thursday morning – Greenacres Golf Club: a well groomed course on the northern side of Invercargill with a good variety of holes. Unfortunately the boy in the pro-shop forgot to tell us there was a tournament on in the PM so after 9 holes we headed off to the beach.
Thursday afternoon – Southland Golf Course at Oreti Sands: now here is a course with a real difference. Wonderfully tight start through the sand hills on the relatively new revised layout but even when it does open out it remains quite a challenge to avoid the marram grass. Plenty of care needed and the club provide a certificate to say you survived the round. Certainly and most definitely a course to be played again.
Friday – Winton Golf Club: a wonderfully immaculately groomed 18 hole course, with good distance and variety of shape. They sure know how to grow great grass on both the fairways and the rough. Probably the best greens of the trip with good speed and a smooth roll.
Saturday – Tokarahi Golf Club: located 11km from Duntroon just off the Dansey’s Pass road this 9 hole course was the big surprise of the trip. A hilly course and very well kept with better than average greens it was quite a challenge for stance and distance judgement even though some of the holes were not too long. We joined about 20 players for their club day and had a great time with the hospitality afterwards reminiscent of the old days. Visitors most welcome and we hope to return there again.
Sunday – Timaru Golf Club at Levels: a sister club of ours and probably familiar to many. The course is interesting enough but fairways and the rough were disappointing with too many “Shirley” patches (not sure what these are given how well 5 & 6 have come on in the spring - Ed). Even though the greens had only been cored earlier in the week they were surprisingly good. It is hoped that they will be able to improve these deficiencies as the layout itself is interesting enough.
Overall a good trip and really interesting to visit and play such a variety of courses.