Nested north of Perth in Western Australia, Wanneroo Golf Club is a 18 hole parkland course. Founded in 1970, and opened three years later, the Bob Green/Murray Dawson design is not hugely long from the back tees by today’s standards at 6,234 metres. But Wanneroo’s challenge is via its doglegs lined with trees and large well-placed bunkers.
The par-3 4th hole is the longest of the one-shotters on the course and the best of the short holes for us. Played downhill, the 188-metre hole features a fairly small green surrounded by mounding and slopes that can both help a slightly miscued approach by throwing it toward the hole or hinder by doing the opposite. This is a common theme throughout the course, with the sloping surrounds making short game options plentiful and difficult, with the best place to miss short of the green on most holes.
The trio of opening holes at Wanneroo Golf Club offer a fairly tame start to your round, with less than driver required from all three tees for stronger players unless you are in a particularly aggressive mood. What follows, though, is a difficult stretch of four holes – ranking 8th, 5th, 2nd and 3rd on the card – which offer the first test of the day.
The 5th, 6th and 7th, in addition to their difficulty, stand out due to their relative straight lines of play when compared with the rest of the course – particularly on the tighter back nine, where sharp and mild doglegs are the main defender of par from the long hitter.
The par-5 9th closes out the front nine and despite out of bounds to the right and a long bunker left, the 506-metre hole offers the chance to open the shoulders from the tee. The approach to the green is played downhill, offering even shorter hitters the chance to get close to the dancing floor and setup a potential birdie.
The back nine at Wanneroo golf Club
Another par-5 opens the back side and when standing on the tee you are instantly given a taste of what is to come on the second half.
Three large fairway bunkers and a sharp bend to the right make finding the fairway of the 435-metre hole a difficult task, before contemplating whether to challenge a well bunkered green to perhaps give yourself another birdie chance or risk bogey or worse.
A mid-length par-3 and dogleg left par-4 come next before you reach the hardest hole on the course.
The par-4 13th measures 406-metres from the tips and is the most memorable of the back nine two-shotters – which, if there is an identifiable weakness of the course, is the par-4s bearing a certain sameness from one to the next.
Ranked as the 6th hardest on the course, the concluding hole features perhaps the design’s most severe dogleg, which turns to the right around a fairway bunker that can be challenged by some. Like the majority of the other holes at Wanneroo, however, the choice of shot from the tee is not an automatic one for any player, the long hitter cannot simply blast away, with the fairway narrowing beyond the trap. And the conservative player mustn’t lay too far back or to the left either, with a significantly longer approach into the left-to-right sloping green the result of an overly defensive tee shot.
Note that public bookings are available Monday to Friday at Wanneroo golf Club..
