Nelson Bay Golf Club — Attraction in Nelson Bay

Hi All, I would advise anyone that is not a scratch golfer to give Nelson Bay Golf Course a miss. If you must go please make sure it’s not on a competition day. My family and I made the trek up to Nelson Bay to celebrate my 60th birthday and part of that was the idea of an enjoyable round of golf with my brother in laws in a group of four. The day was going really well until the 15th tee. A gentleman (use this term rather loosely) takes it upon himself to drive over to us, on his cart, from two holes away to tell us we needed to hurry up. At this point I should mention that we were all on foot and neither of the course administrators and or the starter on the day indicated that we would need carts. In my mind I couldn’t see the problem given we were so far out in front with only four left to play so politely and calmly advised that we were moving at a comfortable pace. He obviously wasn’t happy with that response because, surprise, surprise, we see the course Marshall heading in our direction from the clubhouse. The Marshall then proceeded to drive his cart a few holes behind us to check where we were relative to the competition field but then he also tracked us down the next fairway to assess our standard of play. “No pressure there” Obviously satisfied that my original assessment was accurate he drove over to me to make a point of commenting that we were OK. “Well thanks for that now that the enjoyment of day had been pretty much destroyed” When we had played out the 18th I made a point of waiting to see how close the group behind were. We had enough time to return our rented hand buggies, change back to normal shoes, put our gloves, tees etc away and then had at least a further 5 or so minutes to wait before the front of the competition field finally crested the hill in their carts and rang the bell. My takeaway is that whilst the Club wants to portray a brand where all are welcome, the members clearly have a very different opinion. I’ll never be able to have my 60th or that day out again, so I caution everybody thinking of making the trek to Nelson’s Bay Golf Course to play a round to stop and think long and hard about going somewhere else unless your a...

Played Saturday afternoon January 13th 2024.

BEWARE

During the last 9 holes of our round; from about 3pm to 5.15pm, our group had to constantly contend with a large scale sprinkler system fully active on each and every green. It was impossible to putt and not get drenched. The greens were wet and slushy as a result. It was simply ridiculous having to play through torrents of water on each and every green.

Our group mentioned this to the golf pro shop when returning the carts. We were told that Nelson Bay Golf Club has an automatic sprinkler system that is specifically set up to turn on the waterworks when it thinks the greens may be under heat stress; regardless of time of day nor if players are still on the course. The greens keepers do not manually modify the system to allow players to complete their game. The temperature yesterday was around 30 Celsius with a light see breeze; warm but comfortable so why the "system" thought it needed to be on is beyond me.

We were NOT told about this before our game. We were offered NO compensation despite our requests. We were told that if we made a complaint it would NOT be listened too so don't bother. I intend to also lodge a formal complaint against Nelson Bay Golf Club with NSW Fair Trading.

Put simply; if you play here beware that you run the strong risk, particularly in summer, of playing your round in the wet negotiating a greens sprinkler system specifically programmed to have a...

Pretty disappointing overall. Had the potential to be a good course and overall experience, but reasonably dissatisfied with how stringently (the arbitrary) rules were enforced. It reached well beyond being simply encouraging players to be respectful of the course, to the detriment of the group’s enjoyment from the very beginning of the round, before the first tee shot.

Notionally, we were a group of 5 and continually told to split up, despite not a single group being behind or in front of us for the entire round and not even playing as a group of 5 irrespectively. We were told we could not play off blue tees unless each individual was a member at a club. Credit card details were taken down for carts. Reminders were sent to play as a group of 2 nearly every hole. Nonetheless, pace of play was kept (4hr play 18 holes), all divots were repaired, noise was kept to a minimum, but not for the right reasons. Where we wanted to do as such out of respect for the course, instead we simply felt compelled to do so from the hostility faced at the pro shop.

For a supposedly ‘award-winning course’ at over $50 per round, there is certainly significant room for improvement and I would implore a review of the treatment of visitors/guests of the course.

I would not recommend this course even remotely for any larger groups, regardless of...