Cape Wickham Links – King Island

Visiting this course was one of the best golf experiences I have ever had.

First of all, the journey to the island itself is quite fun, you get on the smallest plane possible, the pilot jokes with you all the way, you land on a super small airport and get the keys to your car from the "lady next door" (you need a car!, public transportation does not exist on the island). Everyone is super friendly and helpful, I guess the 2 courses are the main (if not the only) reason for tourists to visit the island, so the entire community makes sure you fell welcomed.

The course is about a 40 minute drive away from the airport, depend on how fast you want to go, even though the road is totally empty I think I meet 2 cars the entire drive, there are animals jumping around, so, don't get to courageous.

When you arrive at the course, it becomes apparent from the start that you will have fun, the landscape is perfect for a links course.

The clubhouse is a small cottage with the restaurant, Pro-shop etc all in one room, all made very homey. Usually this would not be to my taste, but in this instance, it works great.

When you arrive you essentially pay a daily green fee and go about it. On the day I was there, there were 14 golfers the entire day, meaning, absolutely no crowds on the course, I ended up playing 3 rounds and loved every single one of them! That being said, on that day, the winds were the strongest I ever experienced on a golf course and still, this thing is just so much fun to play. It rewards good shots, in wind, you can drive it for miles on some holes and not even feel it on the others. The trimming of the course is excellent, the layout is fantastic and for more or less the entire period you'll be playing, you'll have spectacular views of the ocean.

I will not go in the details for every hole, the point I would like to make is, if you ever have a chance to play the course, please do, you will be missing out if you don't!

Set on a spectacular stretch of coast on a remote Island in the Bass Strait, Cape Wickham is inconceivably good. It’s hard to imagine that such a good Golf course could have been laid out in such a remote location.

We played it on a blustery bit sunny day and we awestruck the whole way around. Photos do not do this place justice. You simply have to place it to believe it.

There are lots of great holes here but the most memorable were the short par for 12th which tempts you to get close to the green with your drive and the closing 3 holes - which really make you work hard to keep you from ruining your scorecard.

A truly memorable Golding experience which I look forward to repeating some day soon.

Fantastische linksbaan met aanhoudend zeezicht. Lange holes van de backtees met drivecarries van soms 190 meter over woeste duinenbegroeiing. Zoals de signaturehole 18 die hoewel een par 4 aan de 18 van Pebble Beach doet denken. Ook veel uitdagende blindshots. Greens zijn perfect maar moeilijk te lezen.

Je bent hier aan het einde van de wereld in een ongerept natuurgebied met enkel een prachtige vuurtoren als enige menselijke aanwezigheid. Een woeste zee rondom maakt alles uniek.

Dit is absoluut een wereld topbaan.

One of the best golf experiences you can get in the world these days. You’ve got so many things that are coming together here. Breathtaking views, jawdropping shots over the beautiful Victoria Cove beach, playing along an absolutely wild and dramatic coastline and where you also can find the tallest Lighthouse on any golf course in the world. It offers a tough challenge and big variation in shots. Every par 5 is played in different directions and please don’t let that fact the course isn’t the easiest course to travel to, you will need to play it at least twice. This is brilliant golf at it’s best and those finishing holes will stay with me as a sweet memory forever. Wow.

Cape Wickham’s signature is the 140 year old lighthouse that has witnessed its fair share of tragedies over the decades and now watches over many golfing wrecks. When this startling white effigy appears, your heart will start to race and as you drive aside the massive dunes with view below of the back nine, your mouth will become dry. No photo or drone video can do justice to this spectacular.

The world became more beautiful the day they opened Cape Wickham.

Unimaginably, Cape Wickham combines everything that is wonderful about Barnbougle with everything that is breathtaking about Ocean Dunes. If Monet was responsible from Barnbougle then Renoir painted Cape Wickham and only the most astute eye can spot the differences in the canvass. And while there will be endless debate over the better opening holes between here and Ocean Dunes, there is no dispute which course has the better closing holes.

Cape Wickham has been compared to Portrush and Pebble Beach; the day will come when those two courses are compared to Cape Wickham.

To avoid debate we’ll skip straight to the par 5 9th, the start of OMG Corner! Elevated tee, downhill all the way, always into the teeth of a gale, to a green protected by a crevasse front left and the end of the world over the back – not that you’d ever be able to hit off the back of the green. A 40km wind is considered a gentle breeze on King Island and it never seems to be blowing from behind you.

The short par 4 10th plummets down to a green seemingly perched in Bass Strait. The par 3 11th is played “in” Bass Strait. The green is so close to the lands edge that it should have been sewn with seaweed rather than the tradition Bent grass. The 12th is the exit to OMG Corner and maybe because the sun made a fleeting appearance, it presented as possibly the most picturesque hole.

The closing three holes have evolved from mythical to legendary; a combination of folly and genius. Consider this, the beach that runs along the 18th fairway is NOT out of bounds.