Rare form at Kingston Heath
April 13th, 2007 by Doogs
Had the fantastic opportunity to play one of Australia’s best courses today, Kingston Heath. Thanks to Mark for the invitation, whom I joined for a fourball with Daniel and Jason, a great networking opportunity! Kingston Heath is consistently rated as one of Australia’s premier courses, and is often in the Worlds top 100 layouts. The traditional sandbelt layout is not overly long in todays standards at 6352 metres, but makes up for it with punishing tea tree and loose sandy rough, penal bunkering and challenging shot selection.
‘The Heath’ has some excellent examples of short holes, including the tempting yet punishing 269 metre 3rd hole and the 127 metre par 3 10th. Find the fairway, and you are rewarded with a perfect lie every time, on the green, the putts are quick but true.
With the fog starting to lift, I started as per usual with two double bogeys and a 3 putt! The wedges were working again, keeping the scores in check, a few missed short putts, a par on the long 6th and I finished the front nine as per normal. Parred the short 10th, then bogeyed 11th to 14th including a huge sand save on 12th after hooking my fairway wood into the crap.
The weather was sensational, the driver was really on fire, and the rest of the game was……consistent without being great. So when the much maligned putter started to work, I holed long putts on 16, 17 and finished with pars on the closing 4 holes and a backnine of 40! The firm, hard and true greens gave me confidence to putt down the line, and seeing the ball drop into the cup from a distance was a great feeling. A great day, a very good round.
