Golf Course Architecture: Issue 57 - July 2019

12 NEWS EDI TOR : R I CHARD HUMPHREYS TEE BOX Australia’s new sandbelt design opens Ogilvy Clayton Cocking Mead’s work on the courses at Peninsula Kingswood brings a ‘true sandbelt experience’ to the recently-merged Melbourne club P eninsula Kingswood Country Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia, has officially opened its North and South courses, following a renovation by Ogilvy Clayton Cocking Mead (OCCM). The project began shortly after the 2013 merger of the former Peninsula Golf Club and Kingswood Golf Club, and the move to the Peninsula site in Frankston. “We really haven’t seen a renovation of this scale around the Melbourne courses before,” said OCCM director and lead designer Mike Cocking, who has been a member of the club for over 25 years. “Every green, bunker and tee has been redesigned or rebuilt, fairways reshaped and re-grassed, creeks and water bodies added, a state-of-the-art irrigation system installed, and cart paths, drainage and vegetation developed. What Peninsula Kingswood has achieved in the past four years is basically what every other sandbelt course has spent the last 20 or 30 years trying to accomplish.” Both courses play along the original 1960s corridors, but with new sandbelt bunkers built in a style made famous by Alistair MacKenzie and the father- and-son combination of Mick and Vern Morcom, who built all of the Scotsman’s work around Melbourne. “Mackenzie was the dominant influence in Australia – designing or having an influence on most of our great courses,” said Cocking. “He wasn’t involved at Peninsula, but on a