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Desert Oasis Tee off in Alice Springs BY THOMAS E. KING Alice Springs could easily be ranked as Australia’s most remote outpost. Despite this, the territory’s second largest town is a thriving hub in the Red Centre. Alice Springs has a well developed infrastructure serving an increasing number of visitors seeking the perfect desert experience, be it a flight over, a walk around the world’s biggest rock or a cultural exploration of Aboriginal life. Alice wasn’t so visitor-friendly in
1933. There were no sophisticated
resorts back then, no coach tours and
no surfaced roads. It was, indeed a
rough life. The only thing that made
it bearable from that year onwards
was the establishment of the Alice
Springs Golf Club and the creation of
a playing area along the banks of the
normally dry Todd River.
The course was relocated to roughly
its present site during the early 1940s.
The fairways were essentially cleared
bush lands that meandered through
rocky hills and past stony outcrops
while the greens, a mixture of oil and
sand, were known as ‘sand-scrapes’. A then rising star on Australia’s golf horizon, Greg Norman, and former British and US Open Champion, Johnny Miller, were the first to admire at the scenery as they were pitted against each other in an exhibition match to officially open the Alice Springs Golf Club in November 1985. They discovered that the sole golf playground in Alice Springs is unlike resort courses found anywhere else in the country. Past the narrow green strips of manicured and maintained lawn is a fringe of sand and brown rocky rough. Beyond that are the harsh realities as well as the timeless beauty of Outback Australia CONTACTS Alice Springs Golf Course Email: asgc@alicespringsgolfclub.com.au www.alicespringsgolfclub.com.au Northern Territory Tourism Commission www.ntholidays.com www.centralaustraliantourism.com |
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