Inside Golf, Australia. June 2014 | Page 13

news AT A GLANCE Recently listed For Sale Moonah Links/Sands Torquay Eagle Ridge GC Recently Sold Capital GC Heritage Golf & Country Club Links Hope Island Noosa Springs Cypress Lakes Lakelands GC Moving or Merged Kingswood (to Peninsula) GC The Eastern GC Chirnside Park/Gardiners Run Horton Park GC Closed Capricorn Country Club Ipswich GC (Receivers) The new Gardiners Run in Lilydale, Vic While relocation appears logical, Kelly warns that it’s an extremely difficult strategy to implement and one that can easily send a club into a heavy financial downturn. “It appears that it’s easy because so many clubs have done it in the last 10 years,” Kelly says. “Waverley tried and they’re still trying. It’s a real challenge to do this. It took us 10 years to get our current site rezoned from special use to residential and that’s a massive commitment. If we hadn’t have had a developer, we would have gone broke doing it.” Chirnside Park only needed to sell part of the land at its Kingswood Drive address to fund the move to Gardiners Run. It has retained 11 acres in Chirnside Park, which will continue to be used to offer members tennis, at the present stage, maybe that’s an option you can look at. The six (holes) out, six in. If you need to play 18, you could play one of the six again.” • lawn bowls and a clubhouse with gaming and a bistro. Gardiners Run manager Garrick Aird concedes that partial land sales are complicated but says they could be a wise choice for other Melbourne clubs. “I’ve seen a few courses that have done that and then they’ve had houses encroach onto their boundaries and then that creates boundary issues, then courses get re-designed and when you re-design something, it tends to cost a fair bit of money to redesign a fairway or a green or a hole. It depends what your model is. I’ve been a little bit of an advocate for being a little bit different. If you go back to where it all started, there was 13, 14, 15-hole golf courses. With people being very time-poor New developments Eastern GC Black Bull GC Ocean Dunes GC Cape Wickham GC St Andrews Private (Stalled) Bingara Gorge (NSW) Kooralbyn (to reopen) The new Black Bull Golf Club in Yarrawonga, Vic The all new Optima TS Premium is the result of decades of continued testing, development and refinement of the legendary Australian Optima golf ball. • New high speed Opti-Core with higher launch and lower driver spin to max out distance. • New aerodynamic 432 dimple pattern for increased carry and improved flight stability. • New bright white Ionomer cover provides scuff proof durability and a great soft feel synonymous to the Optima TS golf ball. • Our Longest Optima TS ever!!! Optima is proudly distributed by Walkinshaw Sports. For more information phone (03) 9 265 9500 or visit wsports.com.au. www.insidegolf.com.au | June 2014 13