Newcastle Golf Club has been ranked 11^th place in the 2008 Golf Australia magazine’s Top 50 Golf Courses, in Australia.

“Our position as one of Australia’s top golf courses is largely thanks to the people working at the Newcastle Golf Club. We are also fortunate to have a very supportive board and strong friendly membership,” Paul Foulcher.

The judges included Michael Clayton, Ross Perrett, Darius Oliver, Bob Harrison, Andrew Langford-Jones and Brendan James.

HOW THEY RANKED

1. ROYAL MELBOURNE (West course) (1) Designer: Dr Alister Mackenzie (1931)

2. KINGSTON HEATH (2) Designer: Dan Soutar (1925)

3. NEW SOUTH WALES (3) Designers: Alister Mackenzie (1928); Eric Apperly (1937 & 1951); Peter Thomson & Mike Wolveridge (1985); Jack Newton, Graeme Grant & John Spencer (1993); Greg Norman & Bob Harrison (2000).

4. BARNBOUGLE DUNES (5) Designers: Tom Doak & Mike Clayton (2004)

5. ROYAL ADELAIDE (4) Designers: Herbert L. Rymill & C.L Gardiner (1904); Dr Alister
Mackenzie (1929); Peter Thomson & Mike Wolveridge (1979 & 1997).

6. ROYAL MELBOURNE (East course) (6) Designers: Alex Russell (1932)

7.  ELLERSTON (NR) Designers: Greg Norman & Bob Harrison (2001)

8. THE NATIONAL (Moonah course) (7) Designers: Greg Norman & Bob Harrison (2000)

9. METROPOLITAN (8) Designers: J.B MacKenzie (1906); Dr Alister Mackenzie (1926);
Dick Wilson (1959)

10. VICTORIA (10) Designers: Oscar Damman, William Meander & Dr Alister Mackenzie (1927); Mike Clayton (2001)

11. NEWCASTLE (11) Designer: Eric Apperly (1937)

Recently featured in The Herald’s Hunter Golf lift out (29.09.08), the Hunter Valley’s Newcastle Golf Club has once again claimed the regions top spot for public access golf courses in the Hunter Valley and Newcastle region.

The Hunter Valley’s second-rated golf course (behind Ellerston, which has no public access) is ‘the wonderful Newcastle Golf Club at Fern Bay, described by Darius Oliver in his book Australia’s Finest Golf Courses as ‘fabulously understated’ and ‘one of Australian golf’s absolute treasures.

‘Built on sand hills alongside the Pacific Ocean not far from the Hunter River, Oliver says the course is not just one of the best in NSW but one of the finest classics anywhere in Australia’ The Herald.

The Hunter Valley’s top golf course provides Oliver with a number of his top-rated golf holes in the nation, ‘including his favourite hole in the Hunter, the fifth, and probably Newcastle’s most celebrated hole, the par three, seventh.

‘The club describes itself as a true championship course based on undulating sand dunes like those of the great, historic links of Great Britain and Ireland.

‘The club agrees with Oliver and rates the fifth, sixth and seventh as its signature holes, pointing out that the fifth was also featured by golfing journalist Tom Ramsey in his book, The Best 18 Holes in Australia.

‘The 367-metre, par four sixth is one of only 16 holes from Australia to be featured in The Best 500 Holes in the World, while the seventh continually wins design acclaim and has been ranked as one of the best 18 holes in the world, outside the USA and the British Isles’ The Herald.

Visit the Hunter Valley’s golfing treasure for yourself today.

If you haven’t played golf on NSW’s number 1 regional golf course, then you haven’t experienced the Hunter Valley’s hidden golfing gem.

Ranked number 15 in Australia (Australian Golf Digest 2008), the Newcastle Golf Course is situated in the stunning Hunter Valley and offers golfers of all levels a spectacular and exciting challenge.

Just 2 hours north of Sydney, Newcastle’s historic golf course is also home to some of the world’s highest ranked holes. With holes described as ‘a touch of poetry’ and becoming an amphitheatre of native flora that is vibrant and alive, the picturesque Newcastle Golf Club is sure to impress.

A long-term partnership between the New South Wales Government and GA announced on Monday locks the event away in Sydney until at least 2015.

The multi-million dollar agreement will enable the tournament to compete with rival tournaments for international players and increase prizemoney, according to GA officials.

This year’s Open will be staged at the Royal Sydney Golf Club in December while the New South Wales Golf Club will be host in 2009, it was also revealed.

GA chairman and interim CEO Anne Lenaghan said the recent success of the Australian Open gave organisers a solid platform for the future.

“The last two Opens in Sydney have witnessed growing crowds, a festival atmosphere and a new sense of ownership and pride in our national championship,” Lenaghan said.

NSW premier Morris Iemma said his government had a long-term vision for the Open.

This year’s Open, scheduled for December 11-14, will see current world No.4 Adam Scott and world No.6 Geoff Ogilvy fighting for a home crown.
from pgatour.com.au

Press release from Golf Australia - Golf Australia and Events New South Wales are thrilled to announce an unprecedented strategic partnership that will secure the Australian Open through to 2015 with the aim of it becoming the premier event in the Asia Pacific region.

This new multi-million dollar agreement enables Golf Australia to accelerate its long term goals for the Open and importantly provides the funding to attract star international players and increase prize money.

Identified as a “Hallmark Event” by the NSW Government in 2007, Premier Morris Iemma was delighted at securing the Open, he stated “We have a long term vision for the Open and are committed to building the Championship into the region’s premier golfing event.

“An enhanced Australian Open will be one of the key sporting attractions in the State’s event calendar, which will be revealed later this year.”

Anne Lenagan, Golf Australia Chairman and interim CEO, said “We are incredibly excited and greatly appreciate the New South Wales’ Government’s support through Events New South Wales. We now have a new platform on which to continue to build on the success of recent Australian Opens.

“The last two Opens in Sydney have witnessed growing crowds, a festival atmosphere and a new sense of ownership and pride in our national championship. Events New South Wales’ vision and commitment can only raise the championship to new levels”.

Continuing to showcase Sydney’s world renowned golf courses it was also announced today that the breathtakingly picturesque New South Wales Golf Club will be home to the 2009 Australian Open.

It will be the first time that the Open will be played at New South Wales Golf Club.

Designed by the legendary Alister Mackenzie, the course is rated as New South Wales’ best and has been consistently ranked in the world’s top 50 golf courses.

This year’s Australian Open is set to make a triumphant return to The Royal Sydney Golf Club from 11 to 14 December.

Current world number 4 Adam Scott along with world number 6 and 2006 US Open Champion Geoff Ogilvy will join 2007 winner Craig Parry in contesting the 93rd Australian Open.

“It’s a great day for golf. An enhanced strategic partnership with Events New South Wales and a joint vision for growth, the opportunity to showcase Australia’s immense talent alongside an international star field on wonderful courses, the future of the Australian Open is very exciting,” added Lenagan.

Since then, however, golf’s TV ratings have fallen into the abyss. Despite Padraig Harrington’s thrilling victory on Sunday at Oakland Hills, the overnight rating for the PGA Championship was 3.0, down 55% from last year’s final round at Southern Hills — an event won by (surely you recall) Woods.

Such a figure bodes poorly for NBC’s return to the Tour over Labor Day weekend for the second FedEx Cup playoff event, the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston in Norton, Mass. (CBS will telecast the first FedEx event, the Barclays Championship, which Woods did not play in last year.) The Deutsche Bank — which last year featured Woods’s gripping Labor Day duel with eventual winner, Phil Mickelson — will be hard-pressed to approach ’07′s superb 3.4 final-round rating. Nor can NBC be optimistic about the other two FedEx events it carries, the BMW and the Tour Championship. With the possible exception of the Sept. 19-21 Ryder Cup (also on NBC), the Nielsens almost certainly will stay in the doldrums until Tiger’s expected return in 2009.

Though ratings for post-U.S. Open Tour events this summer have been uniformly dismal, the most instructive comparisons are in the numbers for the final rounds of the four events in which Tiger played in ’07. The three domestic events were down precipitously , with the AT&T Classic off 42% and the WGC-Brigestone lower by 39%. (Like the PGA, both were telecast by CBS.) This falloff is reminiscent of the decline in NBA ratings when Michael Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls after the 1998 playoffs. The British Open, on ABC, was down a more modest 11% from ’07.

Domestic box office has taken a hit, too, no doubt affected not only by Tiger’s absence but also by economic factors like the soaring price of gas. In July, the AT& T, Tiger’s own tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., reported four-day attendance of 107,120, a drop of 32,269 from ’07. For the WCC-Bridgestone at Akron’s Firestone Country Club (which usually attracts 120,00 for four days) and the PGA at Oakland Hills, media reports indicated that crowds were smaller than in ’07. At Firestone, according to AkronNewsNow.com, one man who lives near the course and offers $8 parking spots on his lawn said he usually parks 30 cars, but this year only had 19. (However, proving that there will always be an England, the brutal conditions at Royal Birkdale for the British Open didn’t scare off the patrons: More than 200,000 defied the elements, the sixth-highest total in the 137 years the event has been contested.)

In the coming weeks, the FedEx Cup events will have the Herculean task of attracting fans to see if the current points leader, Kenny Perry, can seal the deal. Last week the Newark Star-Ledger reported that ticket sales for next week’s Barclays (which this year has moved from Westchester Country Club to Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.) are running ahead of last year’s pace but that a sellout is not expected.

Of course, there’s almost always money at the high end: Crain’s Detroit Business reported a sellout for Oakland Hills’ corporate hospitality packages ranging from $37,500 for a 10-person table to $500,00 for a corporate chalet.

Bucking the ratings trend, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the Golf Channel has experienced 5% ratings growth this year for tournaments that Tiger was absent from in both 2007 and ’08. Maybe hardcore fans are looking for the stars of tomorrow. For TV’s sake, one of them better be named Tiger.