Lonsdale Links

We have great reverence for the work of trailblazer Charles Blair Macdonald and, of course, his colleagues Seth Raynor and later Charles Banks. Macdonald would build America's first great golf course, The National Golf Links. Having learned the game from none other than Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris while studying in Scotland, on his return to the United States he was appointed to design the course and travelled back to the United Kingdom to study its best holes.

Naturally he felt that to build the best course he should copy the best holes he had seen. After the National he would build more courses, again drawing on the best holes of the UK. His apprentice Raynor would do the same, and then Charles Banks soon after. These holes became known as templates, and on practically every one of their courses they would build a handful: the Redan, the Biarritz, the Double Plateau, the Road.

Growing up in Australia we knew nothing of these, and only as we travelled would we learn more and, fortunately, get to play and study them. On land not unlike The National Golf Links in Long Island, we saw an opportunity to build some templates at Lonsdale and create a course as a deliberate throwback to an earlier age, with a look unlike anything else in Australia. We were fortunate the club embraced the idea and the point of difference it offered. Construction commenced in 2018 and the course officially opened for play in 2020.