By Peter Owen
THE first thing that strikes you about Brookwater Golf & Country Club is its beauty.
Carved out of thick forest on rolling terrain on the western outskirts of Brisbane, each hole is a masterpiece of design.
The course is spectacular, many fairways framed by eucalyptus trees whose stark white trunks often act as targets for golfers seeking to plot their way around a course that presents unique challenges.
On many holes you’re aware only of the hole you’re playing, so thick is the woodland and so undulating are the hills and valleys. It’s almost like navigating your way through a tunnel in the bush.
It’s a Greg Norman design, so you know it will be challenging. But that’s the charm of Brookwater Golf & Country Club – play it well and you know you’ve achieved something worthwhile.
Opened only 20 years ago as the centrepiece of Greater Springfield, a master-planned, innovative community that is home to more than 50,000 people, and now the base of the Brisbane Lions AFL club, Brookwater Golf & Country Club is a par 72 championship golf course measuring 6469 metres.
It was so well designed and lovingly maintained that it quickly found favour with golfers of all levels. It’s ranked among the country’s top 35 golf courses and is arguably the very best in Queensland.
Now, with new management in place and a new direction taken, Brookwater Golf & Country Club is planning further improvements to the course and clubhouse, seeks to lift membership numbers, and cement its place as a focus of community engagement.
Under the supervision of Greg Norman’s design team, all bunkers will be renovated, upgrades and renovations will take place in the clubhouse, a different food and beverage strategy implemented, and new membership categories introduced.
The owners, who have financially supported the club through some challenging financial times, have committed to continually improving the course, but with a clear focus to make the club more financially sustainable.
They see increased membership as being critical to that strategy, and they believe incentives should be made to encourage Brookwater residents to become members of their own club.
General manager Patrick Young said Brookwater Golf & Country Club took its responsibility as a community hub very seriously, and wanted more local residents to regularly visit and enjoy the club’s facilities.
The club has always offered a seven-day Family Membership to Brookwater residents whereby residents have full access for two adult and two children under 18. From July 1, residents can take advantage of this membership which includes access to electric carts, discounted green fees for guests, discounts in the golf shop, and early
access to timesheet bookings for $706.20 monthly.
Residents can take out individual seven-day memberships for $440.50 monthly with similar benefits, including the use of electric carts, while non-resident seven-day memberships are from $496 monthly, plus a $2480 joining fee.
The club will offer a selection of innovative Intermediate memberships – including a membership for those aged from 25 to 35 from $295 monthly, again with electric carts included in the fee. A further category with similar benefits, for young adults (aged from 18-25), is from just $147.50 monthly.
“Considering the annual cart fee is valued at $1100, that represents extraordinary value,” Young said, pointing out the quality of Brookwater Golf & Country Club, and the package of benefits that comes with membership.
There will also be a junior (under 18) membership category from $69.30 (monthly) and a membership for five-day weekday members from $275 (monthly), which also includes motorised carts. All membership categories can be paid on a monthly payment plan or paid in full as an upfront payment.
Defence force personnel, veterans and allied health practitioners will be eligible for a seven-day Intermediate membership from $295 monthly.
The club is negotiating with clubs throughout Australia, Asia Pacific, Europe and North America to extend its full reciprocal programs to add value to memberships.
Visitors are welcome to play the course, with green fees set at around $135 for 18 holes at weekends, and $115 during the week.
Brookwater Golf & Country Club is designed in two circuits of nine holes, the front nine running in an anti-clockwise direction with the back nine clockwise. No two fairways are parallel, and some holes seem to occupy their own private valley, providing that unique sense of isolation.
There are plenty of elevated greens requiring precise approach shots, sloping greens and imposing bunkers with high faces.
Fairways are generally narrow, placing a premium on accuracy off the tee, and the course has so many dips and rises that it is rare to have a flat lie.
Nor are there any easy par-5s. The spectacular fourth hole, all 551m of it, requires three well placed shots to reach the green, pitched sharply in the Augusta manner. The eighth is 527m long, the dog-leg right 17th hole a more manageable 483m, while the 13th is another 550m monster.
Golfers must plot their way around the course, sticking to the fairways, playing conservatively and taking care with every putt. Some visitors have described it as golf on a tightrope.
But every centimetre is beautiful. At a recent corporate day at Brookwater, the course ranger had to ask a group to move along – they were stopping after every shot to snap photos of the spectacular surroundings.
Complementing the naturally undulating terrain, each hole features distinctive Australian bushland landscapes, water features, spectacular rock formations and stands of ghost gums.
Greg Norman and his golf course design partner Bob Harrison came back in 2017 to conduct a 15-year renovation, tinkering with some greens, fairways and bunkers.
They reshaped and resurfaced the greens, allowing for more available pin positions and easing the severe slopes that thwarted so many golfers. It’s still tough, but perhaps not as daunting as in its early years.
The course is surrounded by stylish homes, but the residential community is so subtly located that it provides no distraction at all and, indeed, is almost invisible from most holes.
Brookwater Golf & Country Club hosted the Queensland Open and the Emirates Golf Challenge in 2015, and is a popular destination for social clubs, golf groups and individuals from all over the country.
The management team is proud of the property, and feels Brookwater Golf & Country Club is worthy of hosting a major annual golf event – perhaps something like the old Australian Masters Championship which, for many years, was a highlight of the national golfing calendar.
Certainly, hosting a major event and showcasing the club to a national audience, is one of Brookwater Golf & Country Club’s priorities for the future.
Though the golf course is the focal point, Brookwater Golf & Country Club offers members and visitors a relaxed bar and dining experience. The restaurant, which overlooks the fairways, is open for breakfast and lunch seven days a week, and for dinner on Fridays.
Perhaps because it takes talent to consistently compete at the course, the club produces more than its fair share of outstanding golfers, including professionals Louis Dobbelaar and Will Florimo and, of course, former club champion Ash Barty, a Brookwater resident.
They all benefit from Brookwater’s exceptional practice facilities which include 12 public and 10-member grass hitting bays, chipping and bunker areas and a large practice putting green.
Brookwater Golf & Country Club
1 Tournament Drive
Brookwater, Qld 4300
(07) 3814 5500
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