Tasmania, Australia

Asia & Australasia

15 Mar

Written By Adam Young

Visit two Tasmanian islands, play three of the world’s top 100 courses showcasing nature’s very finest work, and enjoy food from the most abundant larder.

Although Australia’s biggest island, Tasmania shares many of the natural characteristics of New Zealand. A land rich in produce both on land and sea, rugged in all the right ways, dotted by mountains, green and verdant, alpine forested, densely populated with wildlife and home to some of the most visually striking golf courses in the hemisphere. It’s fitting that on an island renowned for the quality of its natural produce, that a farm should also provide a home for two very tasty golf courses in The Dunes and Lost Farm at Barbnougle.

An hour from the city of Launceston, on land once home to 5,000 head of cattle, Barnbougles opened its first course, Dunes, in 2004, and the work of Tom Doak and Mike Clayton quickly climbed the world rankings. Set amid the dunes on the island’s north-east coast, its wide fairways are countered with large bunkers and that Tasman sea breeze. Couple this with a round at 20-hole Lost Farm – the work of Coore & Crenshaw, also ranked in the top 100 by Golf Digest with steeper sand dunes than its sibling, and heading more inland – and a better pairing of courses on the same trip you’ll struggle to find, especially not one where you’re fed and watered by one of the world’s greatest larders.

Perhaps the only thing that can make this better is a short, 50-minute private charter flight to King Island, off the state’s north-west coast and home to little more than 1,500 people, and also Cape Wickham Links. Ocean views on every hole, routed beautifully around Cape Wickham Lighthouse. It’s with good reason that this truly remote course – opened in 2015 – has been lauded as one of the golf’s best-kept secrets. Drive over the Bass Straits, across stunning coves and undulating fairways to pristine greens, always being challenged and bewitched in equal measure by the elements of this unique island course. As if to make this even more perfect – were that possible – you’re then within striking distance of Melbourne’s iconic Sandbelt.