Course name: Spring Valley
Location: Clayton South, Victoria, Australia
Four Word Course Review: Gets the details right
Everyone should be so lucky as to call a course like Spring Valley their home and play it every weekend.
It has everything that makes golf fun - a comfortably walkable routing, interesting greens, ample variety and well-placed and sparingly-used bunkering.
It's the par fours that really stand out here, from the deceptively steep 1st green making a drive inside the dogleg a must, to the pushed-up green and great bunker pattern of the short 4th, smart centreline lay-up/foreshortening bunker at the lengthy 9th, awkwardly doglegging and off-camber 11th, tempting diagonal drive at the 16th and the visually stunning uphill approach to the 18th.
The attraction of wide open vistas is exhibited well at the 10th, 11th and 18th, which all sit in the same open plain, a few trees dotting the landscape for effect. Standing on the 10th tee (a tricky little drop shot par three to a green in a a sea of sand), it's hard to think of a more pleasant way to present a golf course (similar to the great vista over the 1st, 6th, 5th and 18th from the clubhouse at Kingston Heath).
The 10th mentioned above was my favourite of the one-shotters, but the long iron or hybrid required at the uphill 14th is another shot that lingers in my memory and I'll look forward to having another crack at someday.
Of course continuity is an important part of creating the best course you can, and some old features from previous architects around the course could be removed to make Spring Valley even better. Most notable to me where the rough-covered moguls right of the 12th fairway and overly-fancy shape of the bunker guarding the 6th green.
I love the way the course is presented, especially the fairway-height transitions from green surrounds to tees that blends the holes together and avoids an overly-busy look.
The lack of a handful of genuinely great holes is probably what keeps Spring Valley behind its most fancied neighbours, but by the same token it's also devoid of any real horrors.
Spring Valley might not get included in many visitors' Melbourne Sandbelt itineraries, but the powers that be at similar clubs elsewhere in Melbourne and around Australia would do well to pay a visit and see how doing the inexpensive little things right can make such a great difference to a course.
