There was a tense, divisive buzz in the air.
Multiple information nights held before the big vote had made it clear there was more than a small pocket of vehement opposition to Lyndsay and David Sharp buying Curlewis Golf Club.
There were disgruntled former members of the Geelong Golf Club (the defunct older version) who were understandably nervous about the prospect of private ownership – the old once bitten, twice shy scenario.
They were vocal – and the mood generated felt more like conflict and angst than harmony and progress. Still, the votes were cast and by just three per cent more than the club’s constitution demanded, the decision which set in train one of the great progress stories in Australian clubland was made.
Cards on the table, I was part of that 78 per cent willing to have taken the Sharps at their word – that they had no intention of developing the land for non-golf purposes for at least 10 years, if ever, under their watch.
Make no mistake, had a handful of votes fallen the other way, the doors of the entertainment playground that is now Curlewis would have been shut forever. At the time, a water recycling plant the club had invested in as its prospective saviour from drought had jeopardised its survival with crippling interest repayments.
One of the region’s best holes, the 302-metre par-4 12th offers many attack angles and scores. PHOTO: Brendan James / Snaphook Media
These days, life member and club legend Ivor Chappell joked that along with the water, the problems the plant generated ironically proved the positive turning point in the entity’s history.
“Without that debt, we probably never would have had the Sharps come in … it’s hard to imagine the place without them now,” Chappell said.
This month, us members celebrate 10 years of the Sharp reign – and it’s hard to imagine a more dynamic decade for any comparable club in Australia.
From a member perspective, the perception that traditional club golf still matters is – critically – ever-present. But those casting fresh eyes on the “new” Curlewis will be extremely tough judges if they don’t think the staff live and breathe the club’s motto of “Hip! Green! Fun!”
And if that doesn’t sound like most golf clubs, you’re reading it the right way.
Just eight years ago, the land at the western end of the property was an all-but-forgotten practice area – an occasionally mown, tough-to-access paddock with a sandpit at one end and no guarantees you’d even find you own ball at the other … if you found a patch of grass from which to hit. This barren pasture, though, soon became the clearest indicator of what would happen around the entire club.
The first big-ticket item on the Sharps’ list was to transform that land into one of the hottest properties in Aussie golf – The Range @ Curlewis. Naturally, there’s a covered driving range with 18 bays – all with Toptracer technology – plus a dedicated coaching zone including a fenced short-game area. But that’s not hip enough for Curlewis.
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Each bay has padded seating for those behind the golfer – think bowling alley – with “table service” waiting of food and beverages for the entire party. This, of course, comes from the fully fledged bar, café and restaurant inside – the perfect complement to the building’s conference facilities, golf simulator and extremely popular two-tiered mini golf course.
And while there might be comparable physical facilities like this around the country, I can promise you that it won’t have the patronage of The Range – both in raw numbers, but more importantly the demographics it has introduced to the game.
Thankfully bucking a long-held trend at golf facilities, The Range has become a magnet for women and girls to try golf in a hip environment. It’s nothing for the majority of bays on a Friday evening to be filled by female groups, with the clinking of champagne flutes offsetting the clunk of drivers on range balls.
The next big projects away from the course proper have become legitimate game-changers for the club, too. With the first and last hole of what is now the “back nine” redesigned to create space, the club in 2021 began the twin projects of creating on-site accommodation and a sparkling new clubhouse.
To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a publicly acknowledged price tag on the project, but the word on the street is that there was very little change out of $20 million – a phenomenal investment in a regional facility, particularly in the health crisis of the time.
And while even that ballpark of funding doesn’t guarantee a successful project, the proof is in the pudding, or crème brulee in this instance, with one of the components of the development the spectacular French restaurant, Claribeaux. The establishment has already won awards for its fab fare, having been named Victoria’s “best casual dining” experience of 2022 and 2023.
As a nod to its history, the Claribeaux end of the new building incorporates a couple of elements of the original clubhouse. But that’s about where old-fashioned starts and ends. The cuisine is modern, the architecture modern and the “top-end” experience of the Accommodation @ Curlewis befits its ultra-modern appearance.
Back inside, the pro shop has a happy mix of traditional and again, modern, to cater to members and visitors alike. Which brings us conveniently back to Ivor Chappell.
The middle “hospitality” section of the clubhouse has officially been christened “Ivor’s Spike Bar” in deference to the club’s second-ever member and the inaugural treasurer when it opened its doors in 1970.
And again, while it happily incorporates the “old” expectations of a post-round meeting place for golfers, it’s sufficiently funky to entertain other passers-by with its hat dipped to artworks, and the spectacular late-afternoon colours of a sunset over the nearby You Yangs hills, the backdrop to Port Phillip Bay.
Ivor, still a regular visitor, remains “blown away” when he thinks of that honour. “But really, I’m even more amazed by the progress around the place,” he beams after reflecting on the club’s extremely humble beginnings.
The bulk of the drama is on the second shot of the reachable par-5 fifth hole at Curlewis GC. PHOTO: Brendan James / Snaphook Media
The nearby East Geelong Golf Club, he recalls, had bought the land as an “insurance policy” of sorts in the mid-1940s in case it
was shunted from its Eastern Park base. But the land was without a regular water source and essentially leased back to farmers when it was found to be too dry to sustain any development works.
Mains water was eventually connected through the area in the late 1960s and soon enough, Curlewis threw open its doors to reveal a wonderful layout designed by Vern Morcom, the famous Kingston Heath greenskeeper who was quite prolific with his designs around Victorian country clubs, but also at The Grange in Adelaide and Spring Valley in Melbourne.
Within reason, Morcom would be ecstatic to see so many of the ideologies of his original layout preserved by the course’s modern design godfather, Mike Clayton, whose original 2001 master plan for Curlewis remains in place, with obvious changes necessitated by technology, practicalities, climate and new-age nuances.
Clayton, a prolific winner of amateur and professional events around Australia and the world, has worked cohesively for a generation with long-standing superintendent Rob Bradley to bring the club’s chief asset to a standard on par with all bar the super-elite metropolitan courses.
The removal of several thickets of unsightly and golfer-unfriendly trees, particularly around the club’s now front nine, has greatly enhanced turf quality and water dependence.
Aesthetically, too, a couple of the bunkered “wasteland” areas this has created has reinforced the perception of the course as akin to its Sandbelt cousins across nearby Port Phillip Bay.
The long fifth hole has also massively benefited from some tree removal, which has not only generated a pleasant wetland area, but permitted the adjacent fairway the sunlight it needed to thrive through winter.
Newly levelled and continuous couch left of the 7th green have not only made that hole’s business end less of a lottery, but at the same time given multiple new tee positions on the splendid par-three 8th hole, too. In short, they are thoughtful amendments.
And they’re all on the side of the course that’s generally not regarded as the club’s best. The back nine has a series of holes which would – both in terms of aesthetics and strategy – fit nicely on those Sandbelt layouts they vaguely resemble.
On the brilliant choose-your-own-adventure 12th hole, Clayton is on record comparing it to some of the great par-4s in both Australia and on the UK’s Open rota.
“It’s rare to find a good Australian hole using out of bounds as a legitimate and strategic hazard. The 12th hole at Curlewis is the only one I can think of and if it were on the Sandbelt or any of the better-known championship courses around the country, it would be universally admired,” Clayton has written.
“If forced to put the best ones in order, it’d be in my top five.”
Another high on the list of great holes is the shortish par-3 17th, which has a multi-tiered green framed by some spectacular bunkers and big drop-offs long and left.
It’s the last – and maybe the best – of a collection of par-3s that has few rivals in regional Australia.
And the best thing of all? The next time you visit, you’ll probably find something new and fun – on or off the course itself.
“It just seems like the place is always getting better,” Chappell said. “I wouldn’t say it’s about change necessarily; it’s just about improving things as they go.”
Hard to find a better – or more qualified – assessment than that.
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