One of the most comprehensive course redevelopment projects in the history of the Australian golf industry is set to be officially unveiled this weekend. After a 15-month construction and grow-in blitz, the famed Royal Sydney Golf Club will reopen this weekend with a series of functions and a double shotgun start tomorrow (weather depending) to celebrate what has been the biggest course undertaking in its storied history.

The festivities kick off tonight with a special ‘thank you’ dinner for selected dignitaries at which Royal Sydney president Lucy Regan will officially declare the new Gil Hanse-designed course open. If Sydney’s weather comes to the party – the Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting up to 70mm for Saturday on top of 10mm today – Regan will hit the ceremonial first tee shot tomorrow morning before the members get their long-awaited opportunity to play what is a dramatically different layout. Joining Regan in the first group will be course superintendent Adam Marchant, men’s captain Adam Cornell and former president Chris Chapman who played a major role in the early stages of the project.

Regardless of whether any balls are hit tomorrow, it will still be a momentous weekend for the club and the end of a journey which started almost nine-and-a-half years ago when it first engaged Hanse as its architect. Despite lodging a Development Application with Woollahra Municipal Council in October 2019, it wasn’t until December 2022 and a NSW Land and Environmental Court ruling later that the project was finally given the green light. After some preparatory work towards the end of 2023, the old course was officially closed on 18 December, with construction beginning in earnest and effectively running right up to Christmas Eve last year.

To say the transformation that has taken place at Royal Sydney over those months is stunning would be an understatement. What has subsequently been crafted by Hanse, his team of shapers, an army of contractors and Marchant’s crew has set the club up for the next 50 years. Gone is the hemmed in parkland style golf course of the past, replaced by a sweeping open layout that affords incredible vistas across the gently undulating property. The playing surfaces blend in with the natural landscape and are counterbalanced by extensive areas of native plantings which will mature over time. The course boasts new Pure Distinction bentgrass greens which provide a wonderful contrast to the Santa Ana couchgrass which is on all other surfaces – tees, surrounds, fairways and rough – while the impressive aboveground features are matched by state-of-the-art infrastructure underground.   

Along with its dramatic new look comes a new name. Previously referred to as the ‘Championship Course’ (and sometimes the ‘Long Course’), the new-look layout from this point on will be known as the ‘Bay Course’. Officially announced by the club on Monday, the new name is in reference to the club’s location in the suburb of Rose Bay which can be seen from the elevated 1st tee adjacent to the iconic Royal Sydney clubhouse.

For Marchant, who has lived and breathed every aspect of the redevelopment from start to finish, this weekend has been a long time coming. He was Royal Sydney’s assistant superintendent when Hanse was first appointed in July 2016 before taking over as superintendent in 2018. It has been an all-encompassing project for him and his crew who were intimately involved in almost every phase, whether it was assisting with construction, laying turf, revetting bunkers, assisting with the landscape plantings and grow-in.

“It’s hard to believe we are finally here and that we have achieved what we have,” Marchant told The Cut earlier this week. “At this time last year we only had two fairways grassed, no greens seeded and the place was a bombsite! I knew it was going to be good and that Gil’s design would stand up, but to see the amount of infrastructure in the ground and the scale of works that have gone on, I think the members will be blown away with the finished product.

“There’s certainly a huge sense of relief we are now at this point. This project has been an absolute rollercoaster right from the early days and the challenges we faced before construction could even begin. To be able to sustain that drive and vision and then maintain the level of intensity throughout 12 months of construction and then grow-in is something I’m really proud of. I still think when I get the chance to sit down and properly reflect on all this, the thing which will blow me away the most is how my team have made this all happen. It’s not possible to do something like this without them on board.

“Gil made some really great comments to me which I passed onto the guys. He said that regardless of what happens from here on, what has been achieved here can never be taken away from us – how we have handled the year under construction; how we worked with him and his team; how we made their job easier; and how we have grown in the golf course and have it in such a good spot for opening. To hear that from a guy of his stature in the industry was humbling and a huge boost for the crew.” 

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the weather and its impact on this weekend’s planned reopening, it has been a relief-filled and even fun week for Marchant who for the first time has been able to reflect on what they have achieved. The relief part came at 4pm on Tuesday when the club officially received sign off from Woollahra Council which had placed 99 specific conditions on the project that needed to satisfied before the course could reopen. Among those was the planting of 250,000 landscape plants in the project’s first year out of an overall total of 500,000.

The fun bit came last Sunday following Hanse’s return Down Under, his first visit back since shaping the final green complex – the 16th – last October. Marchant and Hanse, who was blown away by the turf quality, spent Sunday morning going around all 18 holes, putting every green and pin location. In the afternoon they were joined by Cornell and the project’s landscape architect Harley Kruse, going around again but this time hitting tee shots, bunker shots, approach shots as well as putting on the greens.

On Monday, Hanse provided an audio recording to a video flyover of every hole discussing his design intent and strategy which will be used as a historical reference for the club. That evening, the club held a function attended by 250 members where Hanse held court and spoke more candidly about the journey he had been on with the project, his first in Australia. As part of that he regaled members with his memories of the construction of each hole, some of the unique features that have been created and some of the funny stories behind them coming to fruition. He also paid special tribute to Marchant and his team and the incredible amount of work they did and the level of conditioning of the turf they have achieved ahead of the opening. 

Having started last January, course construction works effectively came to a conclusion last December with the final rolls of Santa Ana couchgrass from Dad and Dave’s Turf going down on the new par five 15th hole on Christmas Eve. Ironically, the green on that hole was one of the first to be constructed and seeded, however, with the 15th fairway used as the project’s main construction compound (due to its location near the main entrance road to the maintenance facility), it was the last to be turfed.

The final tranche of works effectively involved completion of the 11th, 15th and 16th holes, as well as construction of the club’s new 8.8ML dam which was carried out over a 10-week period between October and December. Since Christmas it has been all about concentrating on the final stages of grow-in across the property and navigating the new Pure Distinction greens (the first six of which were seeded last April and the final one mid-October) through Sydney’s hot and humid January and February. For the most part the weather played ball and the quality of the surfaces that have come up this week is a testament to the exacting programmes that Marchant and his team have had in place and monitored closely.

Over the past 10 days the crew have reduced the heights on the greens from 3mm to 2.75mm for opening day, with staff using cutting boards to protect the perimeters. Each green has a 3.5mm perimeter cut and then there is a 6mm couchgrass collar (two walk-behind mower widths) around each green. All other couchgrass surfaces had been at 9mm, but just in the past week they have been raised to 10mm after some scalping on the less mature areas (all couchgrass areas were solid turfed).

To assist with easing the new course back into play and to protect what they have constructed, Marchant has been able to implement a full course closure every Monday for the first year with the backing of the club’s Greens sub-committee and General Committee. These so-called ‘maintenance Mondays’ will allow Marchant and his team to undertake some of the bigger tasks and cultural practices as they finetune the fledgling surfaces. As well as the Monday closure, the number of rounds in the first year will be capped at 600 per week, while no carts are allowed on course and no trollies across greens. Marchant also has the ability to close the course in the event of adverse weather.

“The big unknown now is the traffic piece and how the course will respond,” says Marchant “We want to get these surfaces as good as we can so that come 12 months’ time they will be at their prime. Having these protective measures in place makes sense and the club has been very supportive and have communicated the importance of it to the members.

“The next 12 months are going to be really exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing how the members navigate their way around the course and what we will need to change or tweak. From a turf perspective, it will be about managing that first winter and making sure we are not overdoing it and trying to understand what we need to do for the next growing season to fast-track things.

“The exciting bit will be getting a greater understanding of how the surfaces perform and respond to some of the changes in our management practices. With the new profile in the greens we will be able to play around a lot more with moisture content, while we are still learning about how to manage the Pure Distinction and what our renovations will look like. The couch surfaces are quite green at the moment because they had to be to get them up for opening, but the plan is to run them a lot leaner and meaner which means the course will visually look very different than it has done in the past. We also have another 125,000 landscape plants to go in over the next year, so there is still plenty of work to happen out on course, but I reckon in 12 months’ time the place will be humming.”

The ASTMA congratulates Adam and his team and Royal Sydney on reaching this week’s milestone in what has been a significant journey. The May-June 2025 conference edition of Australian Turfgrass Management Journal (Volume 27.3) will feature a series of articles detailing the completion of the redevelopment. For more information about the early stages of the project and some of the key elements of the redevelopment, CLICK HERE to read the series of articles that appeared in the July-August 2024 edition of ATM (Volume 26.4).

Pictured from top down: The new par four 18th hole; Royal Sydney superintendent Adam Marchant (left) with assistant superintendent Thomas Jones (centre) and senior foreman Matt Broad (right); the par three 6th; and the new par four 7th hole plays back down the corridor of the old 14th. More than 250,000 landscape plantings have been put in across the course to date with another 250,000 plants to go in over the next two years. Photos: Brett Robinson