World's longest golf course - by several hundred miles!

Gotta love ingenuity when you see it. Australian entrepreneurs, desperate to make travelers through a desolate region of their country slow down and spend more time there, have come up with a doozy. It looks like a lot of fun, too!

The vast Australian emptiness of the Nullarbor Plain [circled in red on the satellite image below] is famous already as one of the world's most gruelling car journeys.




Now it has become the proud home of the world's longest golf course.

Eighteen holes spread over 1,365 km (848 miles) of outback terrain that can take as long as seven days to play - longer even, if you keep on hitting your balls into the scrubland or suffer the indignity of having them stolen by an errant dingo.

But more of the hazards of playing this mega-course later. Let's deal first with the mega-logistics.

This is a course which favours patient drivers, because you will be spending an awful lot of time behind the wheel.

The idea is that after playing one hole, you drive to the next... and then the next. The problem is that they are often 100 km (60 miles) further down the highway.




So long is the course, in fact, that it is spread over two states, South Australia and Western Australia.

If approaching the Nullarbor Plain from the west, you can tee off in the former gold mining town of Kalgoorlie. From the east, the starting point is the coastal town of Ceduna.

It's a par 72 course, and bright yellow warning signs alert you to wayward wombats and even kangaroos on the way.

The wildlife you will almost inevitably encounter is one of the great attractions of the course. The fourth hole at Nundroo claims to have the largest population of southern hairy-nosed wombats anywhere in Australia - surely a golfing first.

At the Dingo Den hole, there's a resident crow which likes to steal stray golf balls. Not to be outdone, dingoes have started muscling in on the act, as well. It is like a golfing safari.

The Old Course at St Andrews this quite definitely is not. But there are shades of Augusta, Georgia, the home of the Masters.

Just as Augusta has a long-established tradition of naming its holes after the flowers which beautify the course, the Nullarbor Links references its outback landscape - Dingo's Den; Watering Hole; Border Kangaroo; Oyster Beds; Golden Horse; 90 Mile Straight.




The idea for the course came from a group of roadside businessmen, who wanted to slow down motorists as they crossed the mighty plain.

Rather than watch them hurtle down the highway, they preferred them to stop, take in the sights and spend some money.




After a couple of bottles of wine, the germ of an idea was born. "Perhaps we should have a golf course across Australia," said Don Harrington, who was there at the creation.

"From there the embryo was formed - and today, five years later, we're here and we've arrived. That's how it all happened."

. . .

Aside from the distance, the searing heat and the Astroturf greens, there is another drawback of the world's longest golf course.

It is an absolute nightmare whenever you lose your ball.

There's more at the link.

The golf course officially opened yesterday, October 22nd. It has its own Web site, with lots of pictures (including those shown in this article) and loving descriptions of each hole. For example, Hole 12 at Balladonia is named 'Skylab', for the following reason:

Skylab was a space research laboratory constructed by the United States National Aerospace Agency (NASA) when in July 1979 it eventually succumbed to the Earth's gravitational pull, re-entered the atmosphere and landed in fiery chunks around Balladonia.

Skylab served as a laboratory in earth orbit and was used to make solar-astronomical studies, long-duration medical studies of the three-person crew, extensive multispectral observations of the earth, and to conduct a variety of other scientific and technological experiments, such as metallic-crystal growth in the weightless state.

Over the period before its final descent the world had become fascinated over where the doomed station would land. The US President (Jimmy Carter) personally rang Balladonia Hotel Motel to apologise for Skylab falling on them.

For only the second time in its history the National Geographic Magazine stopped its presses to include the story. The local shire ranger (Mr David Somerville) was photographed giving the director of NASA a littering ticket, which received huge international coverage (the council later waived the fine).

A fuel tank from Skylab is on display at the 12th hole, just to set the mood!




To play the course, one purchases a scorecard (for Aus. $50) at either Kalgoorlie or Ceduna (at either end of the course), then plays through, having one's card stamped at a tourist center or local shop near each hole. The instructions advise allowing approximately four days to complete the course, 'depending how quick you want to play'! On completion, you'll be awarded a certificate to prove you've played the world's longest golf course.




Here's a video report on the new golf course from Sky News.

Sounds like a lot of fun, and a very ingenious idea by the locals. I don't play golf, but if I ever get to that part of the world, I'll pay them a visit, share a beer or two (or three), and congratulate them on thinking up such an original plan.

Peter