I missed my annual golf outing to North Carolina this spring since I moved to Australia. I decided to try and replicate it here in Australia. Luckily, one of my basketball teammates was game for the extravaganza. I quickly found a serious difference here in Australia:
So, searching for your ball in the rough had the added adventure of being a death-defying task (all snakes in Victoria are venomous). Luckily, we only saw one snake, a brown snake – but it was enormous and terrifying to think about even from a distance. I implemented a “snake stomp” whenever I was in the rough – making as much noise as possible – as most snakes in Victoria will not attack unless surprised. The golf carts had notes on what to do if bitten. First piece of advice – stay calm. Yeah right.
Another big difference – flies. Australia has a lot of flies. Flies make concentrating on putts and other shots extra challenging. No one ever tells you about flies in Australia.
The courses we played (The Dunes, RACV Cape Schank, Moonah Links, St Andrews Beach) are all very highly rated in Australia and were fun and challenging courses. It is pretty much peak season at these courses and following a trend I’ve noticed about Australia – they weren’t very crowded. It was blissful. There were great ocean views:
We even saw a few Kangaroos!
All of this was just about an hour south of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula. We stayed in a nice townhouse across the street from the beach.
A tradition on the golf trip to Pinehurst, North Carolina is the drinking of 40s of King Cobra Malt Liquor – 2 per night. That costs about $4/person. Sadly, Australia hasn’t really embraced the wonderfulness that is malt liquor in a ginormous bottle. Due to the metric system, I had to convert ounces into milliliters. So, we went with 3 750ml Coopers Sparkling Ales . Unfortunately, as you may have heard, beer is expensive here – and it cost $18/person. But, they still make good art at the end of the trip!
