Nullarbor Links - the longest golf course in the world
The field runs along the Eyre highway, stretching from the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to the coastal city of Ceduna in the south.
In fact, the 9 Nullarbor Links holes were taken from six existing yards, with the rest spread at rest stops or motels along the Eyre motorway. The holes are 66 km apart on average, and the longest distance between the two craters is up to 200 km.
After 13 years of operation, the field recorded two holes-in-one and the round record at 70 strokes. This is the net performance, after deducting the handicap (handicap).
To play casually, guests only need to buy a scorecard at either end of the field, bring their own or rent a club. If guests want to become a member, the host will issue a card with a general fee of 215 USD and collect it only once but postage fee of 18 USD for locals, 35 USD for foreigners.
At Nullarbor Links, guests don't just play golf. Entering this route, they consider it as an exploration of the economic-cultural-social history or culture-food of the localities along the way. Hole 1 in Ceduna has a famous oyster farming, hole 4 is in the conservation area of a marsupial bear species, hole 6 has a herd of kangaroos running around.
Meanwhile, at the beginning of Kalgoorlie, hole 17 can "tell" about the legacies from the gold rush since 1893, while hole 18 is located near the end of the domestic water supply pipeline built in 1903, pulled from Perth to Kalgoorlie. To date, it is still in operation, with a total length of 8,000 km, transporting water to nearly 100,000 people and farming and sheep farming estimated at six million heads.
Bearing the title of "the longest golf course in the world", the golf section at Nullarbor Links is not the main target of investors. They want to use this activity to develop tourism, thereby generating revenue for localities along the route.
That vision arose during the 2004 red wine confrontation between secretary Alf Caputo and President Bob Bongiorno of the Eyre Highway Operators Association. Within a bottle, Bongiorno told his assistant that he wanted to build the longest golf course in the world, and that the journey implicitly stimulates visitors to spend more on the way or during their stay at the hole or rest stop.
After that, Caputo was given the position of project manager. Thanks to the unanimous support from the government and businesses, Nullarbor Links opened in 2009. As of 2022, this place has more than 20,000 ticket buyers. The management unit said they knew the situation of illegal play but could not control it.
