The Australian & Jack: "Why not do more than just the greens?"

As I noted on Morning Drive Monday, this is a great time of year for late night golf viewing when tournaments Down Under take us to exotic locales. While this week's Floridaesque stop in Sydney won't be nearly as fun to watch as the sandbelt fun at Metropolitan, there is the presence of Rory McIlroy (paired with Ogilvy and Appleby the opening two rounds) combined with the intrigue of big-time golf returning to The Australian.

Peter Stone tells the story of Jack Nicklaus having been re-engaged to supervise the greens he rebuilt over thirty years ago, leading to an overall redo and (gulp) pricey cart path installation.

“The club felt why not do more than just the greens,” club CEO Rob Selley said today. “It’s a Nicklaus course. It made a lot of sense to bring him back because of his attachment to the club.

“Jack absolutely jumped at the chance. His designers were on the ground in late 2010 working on what would be best to do. When the course was built in 1977 there were a lot of spectator mounds, now they’ve basically gone and the course looks much more natural.”

The fairways were redone. Around 12,500 cubic metres of top soil was taken off back to the sand base. And, Jack sent his top green shaper Jerame Miller, one of the highest paid in the business, here for six weeks to supervise work on the greens.   

“His work with his big D6 bulldozer was like an artist at work,” Selley says.

Unlike first time round, the club members did not lose their rounds of golf. Such was the rotation work around the course a temporary 18-hole layout was devised with 10 par threes and eight par fours. The temporary greens would have been the envy of several clubs around Sydney.

It’s almost four years to the day since the Nicklaus team hit the ground. It has cost $5 million with $1 million of that used on cart paths and it also has Nicklaus’ fee included.

“Jack made three (inspection) visits during the construction. He doesn’t get on a plane for less than $250,000 to go to most parts of the world, but he threw those visits in at no extra costs,” Selley said.