Jurassic Golf – Palmer to turn Coolum Resort into a Dinosaur Park
November 14th, 2012 by Doogs
In one of the most bizarre golf stories for some time, billionaire Clive Palmer (insert ‘colourful’, ‘eccentric’, ‘controversial’) and owner of the Coolum resort and golf course (Previously Hyatt Regency) in Queenslands Sunshine Coast, now plans to create the worlds largest dinosaur park.
Editors impression of a round at Palmer Coolum resort in the near future (or should that be, the prehistoric past?)
In case you hadnt realised, dinosaurs are extinct, been so for a while now, so Mr Palmer aims to spread the entire resort and golf course with over 150 life size animatronic dinosaur replica’s. An 8 metre high, 20 metre long, 1.7 tonne Tyrannosaurus Rex has already been moved into place between the 9th Green and 10th tee at the Coolum Resort. Should make for interesting viewing at this year’s PGA Championship. The dinosaur will be automated to open and close its eyes and mouth, move its tail and legs, and also move its chest to simulate breathing. Some will have a life-like roar.
In coming years, rounds at the Coolum Resort course will take on a surreal, bizarre experience as the golfers winds their way through animated dinosaurs across the course. The Trent Jones Jnr layout is an excellent design, and currently ranks 45th in the Australian Golf Digest Top 100 Australian Courses. How will the addition of over 150 massive dinosaurs impact the rankings of the course, will it improve the “aesthetics” scores or will Coolum become another Dinosaur Adventure Golf!
Does anyone know the ruling for a ball embedded in the mouth of a Triceratops?
UPDATE
The Australian PGA was recently held at the Palmer Coolum Resort, won by 26 year old Daniel Popovic. Popovic was hot on Thursday shooting a 64 and then showed true heart and depth to hold his lead through the next 3 rounds. Popovic was watched over by the giant Tyrannasaurus Rex, now named Jeff. Jeff even had his own twitter account @JefftheTRex.
I think the dinosaurs r a great idea the amount of children in this world that would love to go see them, like my 4 year old daughter she is mad on dinosaurs she sore the sea world add and she said me me mum I want to go and dig up some dinosaur bones but we haven’t been because of such a large family we just don’t have the money. The only sad bit about this is it’s on a golf coarse so doz that mean we can’t take the kids to see the Dino’s if we don’t play golf. Please reply
Agreed. Families will want to see the dinosaurs but may not be able to access them on the golf course. And many golfers won’t want the dinosaurs on the golf course. Better to have them in their own ‘Jurassic theme park’, the only dinosaurs on the golf course should be the ones in long socks and plus fours.
But a world class Golf Course is not the place to create
Jurassic Park! What a nutso of a business man
[...] Dinosaurs could again begin to re-emerge on the golf course (oh wait, thats already happening in Queensland) [...]