Caugh blimey. Here was me thinking that these Sunshine Coast courses would be wide open and tourist friendly and gentle. Whoever designed Mount Coolum obviously had a chip on their shoulder (or even on one both), because it's tighter than a duck's rear end. For the most part, anyway. Mind you it didn't help that last night 10 mm of rain fell hard, narrowing the fairways and turning what's left of them into the sort of slush that you encounter on a busy ski field at 3.30 in the afternoon. Nor did it help that we chopped it and couldn't sink a putt had our life depended on it. Oh dear.
On the bright side, it was about a driver and a well struck 6 iron from our front door step to the 1st tee, so we got a lie in. Until 7.15 am. Which is a lie in by our semi-nocturnal standards. Is there such a thing as semi-nocturnal? Probably not.
Mount Coolum GC takes its name unsurprisingly from Mount Coolum, a big round bap shaped rock that sits between the golf course and the beach. Reminds me of Bass Rock, which you look out on from North Berwick GC (a slightly more famous track near a place called Muirfield in Scotland, from where i originally hail - Scotland that is, not Muirfield). MC is quite an impressive lump of rock indeed, and I plan to run up the thing at a weak moment over the next few days.
What I'd really like to do is see if I can hit a driver from the top of Mt Coolum proper onto the 10th green. Chances are I couldn't, but surely it's worth a crack? Watch this space for an "I fought the law and the law won" blog in the next few days. Being 25 now it's hard to get away with such tomfoolery on the premise that "it was just youthful tomfoolery" or "I'm a student; we can't be held accountable for anything."
On a more serious note. Play Mount Coolum on a fine day when it hasn't been raining and you will have a fine experience. Swampy creeks do their best to swallow your ball on a good few holes, and if they don't get 'em one of the audacious Queensland Magpies will have a crack. They had a go at mine once or twice, little blighters. But seriously, the golf course is pretty good for a rural-ish track, and probably pretty good value too.
Apres golf we decided a swim was in order (you can do that on the Sunshine Coast in April), so headed for the hills with our tour guide Henry - who also happens to be Mick's brother, and lives inside said front door and works as a pharmacist and studies and a med student and plays a fair bit of competitive scrabble or did and now doesn't becuase of the social ridicule - for a place whose name I can neither recall nor pronounce. Klondilla or something of the like. Anyway it has a great big waterfall above which sits a rockpool above which sits little waterfalls and rock jumps. And much fun was had by all, as we threw ourselves into the pool from vines, rocks and rope swings. In the pouring rain.
Can't very well play golf all day, can we?
JP
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Chisholm Park
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