It's a lonely drive from King Island's empty airstrip to the planet's most celebrated new golf course. Aside from a farmer on his tractor who we pass a few kilometres up the road – when the surface was still bitumen and my teeth weren't yet rattling from potholes in the gravel road – there's nothing much but paddock after paddock of the island's world-famous cows that produce all that world-famous cheese;and the occasional wallaby and Cape Barren goose that sees sense in playing chicken with the only car that's ventured over this side of the island today. Wind turbines beside us spin faster and faster on the rising sou'-westerly,while the stunted trees that line the gravel roadway all have twisted,gnarled trunks deformed by decades of Southern Ocean gales. We take a left turn that's barely sign-posted;when I wind my window down for a moment for fresh air,I can hear waves crashing in the distance.
And then,just like that,we're there,at the golf world's 24th best course (and Australia's third best). There's no fanfare:no fancy road to a fancy clubhouse where a course superintendent will tell us what time to tee off. There are no caddies in matching bibs and overalls,no bar with fancy liquor,no restaurant with fancy fare. The road is gravel,and the clubhouse isn't much more than a demountable. There are only two cars in the car park,which I'm guessing belong to the girls inside making the ham and cheese sandwiches and selling the meat pies. For there's no one else around,not a single golfer on a course that stretches across some of the golfing world's most perfectly undulated links terrain.
Eighteen fairways roll straight down to gigantic sand dunes and ridges above an angry ocean. Five-metre-high Southern Ocean swells crash onto bare rocky reef,the explosions sift spray through the air,making it so sticky with salt residue I almost feel myself begin to corrode. We're it for the day,then – this motley crew of hackers fresh in from Melbourne,35 minutes'flying time across Bass Strait on a nine-seat Cessna. Ninety minutes ago I was in rush hour traffic around Essendon's private airport;now I'm faced with one of the juiciest prospects in world golf.
That King Island is the setting for this – the world's most exciting new golfing destination – is a surprise to just about everybody (especially the locals),bar the brains behind King Island's two brand new courses. Opening to rave reviews in November 2015,three months later Cape Wickham rocketed to the hallowed high reaches of US golf bible's,Golf Digest,World Top 100 courses (which noted it was one of two of the"hottest new lay-outs on the globe"). Co-investor Duncan Andrews wasn't surprised,if anything he's expecting Cape Wickham to rise even higher in the next year or two."I remember thinking that if ever you were going to build a golf course in the top 20 in the world,then this would be the place for it,"he told Executive Style."I got off the plane and (saw it) and my jaw dropped."
Add to this the credentials of Ocean Dunes – another potential world top 25 golf course which is due to open September 1 – and you'll understand why King Island farmers,and the workers at the cheese factory that employs half the island,are scratching their heads each time new folk drive past wearing Callaway slacks and smart cardigan sweaters. Not since Barnbougle Dunes opened on a desolate,wind-ravaged stretch of northern Tasmania in 2004 – rocketing to the top of the world's best courses with a bullet – has Australian golf caused such a ripple across the globe.
But King Island could go far bigger than Barnbougle (which now has two courses on site within the world's top 100),there's talk Greg Norman might build a course here on terrain further south that's every bit as picturesque and challenging as Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes.
But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. For now,until word really gets out that King Island might just be the biggest thing to happen in world golf in decades,golfers have the opportunity of playing two of the globe's best courses – almost entirely by themselves.