Thirteenth Beach Golf Links – Course Improvement Program

Thirteenth Beach is unique in Australia, for having two high-quality Tony Cashmore planned and designed golf courses, set within a small, prestigious residential precinct. The golf setbacks to home sites are unusually generous and excellent, while both the Beach and Creek courses are well routed.

When I started work with the club, there were 266 bunkers across the two courses and vast wasteland areas. The upkeep of sand for a small, but capable green keeping crew was significant.

Much of our work over the past few years has been to remove bunkers that only catch very poor shots, or were built to screen housing that has subsequently settled into its maturing landscape.

Numerous bunkers have been made smaller, while others have been repositioned to provide a more appropriate challenge for the membership. Several bunker clusters have been reduced from four or five traps, to just two or three.

Pleasingly, all of the work at Thirteenth Beach has been done in-house by superintendent Steve Hewitt, and on a minimal budget. We are midway through the Bunker Rationalisation / Course Improvement Program, and noticeable improvements can be seen in the presentation of bunkers across the two courses.

Largely speaking, the design intent of the Cashmore holes has remained intact, and his greens have been unchanged.

Among more notable works, is the reduction of 19 bunkers to 7 bunkers on the par five 14th hole on the Beach Course, and from 9 bunkers to 5 on the 14th on the Creek Course. More of a feature has been made on 14 Creek of a signature old Cypress tree that was once on the edge of the fairway, but is now within the short grass.

A new central fairway bunker on 8th Beach is among other notable alterations, along with new corner bunkers on 4th Creek.

Several longer holes had bunkers that were not in play for elite players, but forced shorter hitters to play sharp doglegs. The reduction in sand, and dogleg straightening, of holes 11 and 18 Creek and 10 Beach has been pleasing.

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Work will continue at Thirteenth Beach in 2024 and 2025.

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