Alice Springs Golf Club

Alice Springs Golf Club sits in the desert on the edge of town, and its championship layout was designed by Peter Thomson and Mike Wolveridge. Greg Norman and Johnny Miller opened it in 1985.

It is a par 72 of nearly 6,200 metres off the blue tees: nine par 4s, four par 5s and four par 3s. The MacDonnell Ranges stand behind it.

What it asks of you

Beyond the mown grass there is sandy, rocky rough and then the desert. That is the defining condition of the course and it changes how a round is played: there is no rough in the ordinary sense, no semi, no chance of a decent lie off the fairway. You are either on the green strip or you are not.

The two nines are different courses. The front is built around a rocky outcrop and works with the terrain. The back is flatter and more links-like, with a lake in play, and it is the half where the wind does most of the work.

Thomson and Wolveridge built a lot in Australia and Asia, and their signature is a course that is playable in a straight line and punishing off it. In the Red Centre, where irrigated turf is expensive and the alternative is stone, that philosophy is not a style choice.

What players say about it

The club takes visitors and appears in the Australian top 100. The points below summarise what recurs. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• The setting is what everyone names: green fairways in the desert with the MacDonnell Ranges turning amber behind them.
• Conditioning is repeatedly described as remarkable for the climate.
• The Thomson and Wolveridge design earns respect from reviewers who know their other work.
• Its ranking in the national top 100 surprises visitors who came for the novelty.
• The welcome and the clubhouse come up often.

What comes up against

• The heat is the constant complaint, and a summer round is genuinely hard on a player.
• A ball off the fairway is usually a lost ball, and high handicaps go through a lot of them.
• Alice Springs is remote, and nobody plays it on the way to anywhere.
• Nearly 6,200 metres is long, and there is no shelter from the wind on the back nine.

Getting there and when to go

The club is on the edge of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, ten minutes from the town centre and fifteen from the airport.

The course plays all year, but May to September is the season a visitor wants: the summer heat in the Red Centre makes an afternoon round unwise. Tee times are booked in advance.

Green fees

Visitor rates are set by the club. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, the club’s published information and the Australian golf press for the Thomson and Wolveridge design, the 1985 opening by Greg Norman and Johnny Miller and the description of the two nines, and public course records for par, length and the distribution of holes. The opinion section summarises public reviews read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations.

We have not played this course, and this page is no substitute for a round. The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.