Barnwell Park Golf Club

Barnwell Park Golf Club sits on the shore of the Parramatta River in Sydney’s inner west, at 551 Lyons Road West, Five Dock, about eight kilometres in a straight line west of the city centre. The club describes itself as being “front and centre of Hen and Chicken Bay”; the City of Canada Bay, which owns the course, places it at the corner of Lyons Road West and William Street and speaks of views across Canada Bay and Kings Bay. Locally it is known as “Barney”.

It is worth being clear about what kind of course this is before going further. Barnwell Park is a full eighteen-hole course, played every day of the week, with handicap competitions, a pro shop and a members’ club, but it is a short one: 3,478 metres and a par of 61 for men and 62 for women, according to the course map the club publishes. Twelve of the eighteen holes are par 3s. Anyone expecting a regulation par 70 or 72 will find something different here, and anyone looking for a quick, inexpensive round close to the city, or for a place to sharpen their irons and short game, will find what the course was built for.

The arrangement on the ground is also a little unusual, and it explains a few things a visitor will notice. The course is a public course owned and operated by the City of Canada Bay. The clubhouse and the land it stands on belong to Barnwell Park Golf Club Ltd, a member-owned club, which has exclusive use of the course for its competitions on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The pro shop, which takes visitor bookings, is run under the council’s arrangements and changed hands in 2026. The club, the council and the pro shop each publish part of the information about the course, and they do not always agree in the detail.

How it came to be

The ground under the fairways was not always ground. The club’s published history, written in 2008 with the support of its board, records that in the 1930s the land was swamp and mangrove, gradually filled by the local council and used as a tip. In 1942 two reserves in the area were renamed Barnwell Park in recognition of the Barnwell family, who had donated part of the land to the council for a park “for the enjoyment of local residents”. From the 1940s the site was used for baseball, cricket and soccer, though the history notes that the ground was always being levelled, filled and reclaimed. One early idea for the park, it adds, was a drive-in theatre.

The council first considered a golf course on the site in 1952. In 1962 a local social golf club approached what was then Drummoyne Council about building one, part of the land had to be cleared with the Maritime Services Board, which owned it, and work began in 1963. The first nine holes were completed in November 1964, with a small brick pro shop and amenities block at the end of Lyons Road that the members nicknamed “The Out House”. The council advertised for a professional through the PGA and appointed a 22-year-old from eighteen applicants; he received the keys to the new shop in December 1964 and, the club says, stayed for 44 years.

The course was officially opened on 13 March 1965. About a hundred people played that day, according to the history, and the first group off was a party of seventy from the Western Suburbs Sports and Community Club, today the Canada Bay Club. The social club that met in the back room of the pro shop grew quickly. It was incorporated as Barnwell Park Golf Club on 11 September 1968, and in 1974 it bought, from the state, the reclaimed land around the council’s old machinery shed on which it wanted to build. The clubhouse was funded by a members’ levy and debentures, built from 1973 and completed on 29 June 1974. The second nine holes, again largely on reclaimed land, opened the same year, and Lyons Road was built in front of the new clubhouse.

That history accounts for the shape of the place today: a council course laid out on filled land along the bay, a members’ clubhouse on its own freehold, and a public that has been able to walk in and play since the 1960s. More recently the club opened a new restaurant, STONE, in the clubhouse. In May 2026 the City of Canada Bay put the management and operation of the golf course and pro shop out to tender, with a scope covering green fees, bookings and supervision of play; the tender closed in July, and the pro shop now operates under the name Elite Golf Barnwell Park, which describes itself as beginning “the next chapter” for the shop.

The course in figures

The most complete card we found is printed on the course map, produced for the City of Canada Bay and published on the club’s website. It gives a single length for each hole, in metres, and the par for men and women.

The front nine measures 1,969 metres and plays to par 32 for men, 33 for women. It opens with the only par 5 on the card, the 1st at 439 metres. Then come two par 3s, the 2nd at 145 metres and the 3rd at 117, the par 4 4th at 260 metres, the par 3 5th at 122 metres, and the 6th, 358 metres, a par 4 for men and a par 5 for women, which is where the one-stroke difference in par comes from. The 7th is a par 4 of 261 metres, the 8th the shortest hole on the course at 98 metres, and the 9th a par 3 of 169 metres.

The back nine is shorter and has a different character: 1,509 metres and par 29, with seven par 3s and two par 4s. The par 3s are the 10th (120 metres), 11th (146), 13th (103), 14th (169), 16th (138), 17th (155) and 18th (142). The two par 4s are the 12th at 286 metres and the 15th at 250. Over eighteen holes that makes twelve par 3s, five par 4s for men and a single par 5, and no hole longer than 439 metres.

Two independent golf apps publish the same stroke index, which ranks the holes by difficulty for handicap purposes. On both, the 6th is the hardest hole on the course, followed by the 9th, the 15th, the 2nd and the 11th; the 3rd is ranked easiest, with the 13th and the 8th just above it. Other listings give slightly different lengths: 3,422 metres from the blue tees and 3,363 metres from the red, or about 3,400 metres on the council’s own page. The differences are small and probably reflect tee positions, but there is no single current scorecard that settles them.

What it asks of you

A course where twelve holes are par 3s asks for one thing above all: good iron play from the tee. At Barnwell Park the par 3s run from under a hundred metres to nearly 170, so a round covers most of the bag from wedge to long iron or hybrid, and almost every one of those shots has to finish on the green. On a par 4 a loose drive can be recovered. On a par 3 a missed green usually costs a stroke, and the hole descriptions and players’ accounts agree that the greens here are small and well bunkered.

The par 4s, by contrast, are mostly short, between 250 and 290 metres apart from the 6th. They are not driving holes so much as positioning holes. The hole notes published by the pro shop’s earlier website, dated 2018, recommend the same approach on the 4th, the 7th, the 12th and the 15th: a mid to long iron from the tee to leave a full wedge, rather than a driver that brings out of bounds or the canal into play. For a long hitter the temptation is obvious; the course is designed to make it a poor bet.

Hole by hole, from the pro shop’s notes

The descriptions that follow summarise those 2018 notes, which are the only hole-by-hole account we found. Lengths are from the current course map. Where the notes give a different figure, we say so.

The 1st is a straightaway par 5. The notes advise a tee shot left of centre and warn of the canal some 40 metres short of the green, so the sensible play is a lay-up to wedge distance, after which it is described as a good birdie chance. The 2nd, only 145 metres, is called one of the hardest holes on the course because its small green is heavily guarded by three bunkers, and the notes offer a lay-up short and right as an alternative to going for it. The 3rd is a simpler par 3 with a green that slopes from back to front.

The 4th is the short par 4 that the notes call a slicer’s nightmare, with out of bounds all the way down the right, where the course runs beside the road. The green is described as very elevated and hard to hold, and a miss long is preferred to the bunkers short. The 5th is another par 3 to an elevated green surrounded by bunkers. The 6th, at 358 metres the longest par 4 on the card, is the hardest hole on the course by every index we found: the line is right of centre from the tee, and anything long into the green finishes in the canal. The 7th bends slightly left with out of bounds and the canal down the left; the notes give its length as 285 metres against 261 on the current map. The 8th, at 98 metres, is described as a simple par 3 without much trouble, and the 9th, at 169 metres, as a difficult one where a miss long and left or into the surrounding bunkers is costly.

On the back nine, the 10th is a gentle par 3 to start, best approached right of centre. The 11th is harder: a long, narrow green surrounded by bunkers, where a tee shot that comes up short will roll back off the front. The 12th is a slight dogleg left with out of bounds on the left, and the 13th a short par 3 to a small, fairly flat green. The 14th, one of the two longest par 3s at 169 metres, has a very undulating green, and the notes insist on keeping the ball below the hole. The 15th, a dogleg left of 250 metres, is short but ranked third hardest: the green is protected by a bunker in front and a steep bank behind that runs down into the canal. The 16th has out of bounds left and trees right, the 17th a large, relatively flat green, and the 18th, which finishes the round, a small green with out of bounds in play both left and long.

The canal, the road and the wind

The club’s local rules, updated in August 2024, show where the trouble lies. A concrete-edged canal runs along the 1st, 2nd, 6th and 7th holes and is marked as a penalty area; on the 7th it becomes a red penalty area with an extra relief option for balls that bounce in from the out-of-bounds side. Roadside protection screens define the boundary on the 4th and the 5th, and white posts mark out of bounds down the left of the 16th, 17th and 18th. There is ground under repair with dropping zones behind the greens of the 12th and the 15th, and in front of the 4th green, behind the 1st and under a fig tree on the left of the 7th. Young trees protected by stakes are no-play zones.

The course is flat, which is no surprise on reclaimed land, and the council describes it as easy walking. What flatness does not give it is shelter. Players’ accounts mention the wind coming in off the bay as the thing that turns a short course into a harder one, and on a card made of par 3s to small greens, a crosswind matters more than it would on a longer layout.

What that means for your game

Barnwell Park suits a player who wants to work on the parts of the game that decide scores: approach shots, distance control, chipping from tight lies around elevated greens, and putting. It is a natural course for beginners, juniors and older golfers who find full-length courses too long, which is the purpose the club itself states, and for better players it is a test of precision rather than power. A low handicap will not be stretched by the length, but should expect the small greens to punish anything that is not struck well. Leave the driver in the bag more often than seems natural.

The rest of the site

Golf is not the only game played on the course. Since 2019 a nine-hole multi-sport layout for disc golf and FootGolf has shared the grounds, with two tees per hole for beginners and more experienced players. The club describes it as the first venue of its kind in Australia, and bookings go through the pro shop. Golfers should know that it exists, because the two games share the same land, and at least one public review from a FootGolf player complains of golf balls coming their way.

A putting green is listed among the practice facilities, and the local rules mention a practice green near the clubhouse. We found no reliable confirmation of a driving range: one app lists one, the club and the council do not, so we do not count on it. The pro shop offers cart hire, PGA coaching, junior and women’s clinics, club fitting and repairs.

The clubhouse has a bar and the STONE restaurant, which the club describes as built around raw and natural produce, open for lunch and dinner from Wednesday to Sunday. The club’s hours as published in October 2026 are 9 am to 5 pm on Mondays, closed on Tuesdays, and longer hours from Wednesday to Sunday, with evening events such as a weekly trivia night.

Competitions and the club calendar

The club’s competition page sets out the weekly programme, and it matters to visitors because it determines when the course is busiest. Monday has an open individual stableford from first light to 1.30 pm. Wednesday morning has a women’s mid-week competition, and Thursday morning a veterans’ competition for players over fifty, with no joining fee and, the club says, no Golf Australia handicap required. Friday has an open medley and four-ball competition from first light to 1 pm.

At the weekend the club has exclusive use of the course for its members, their guests and visitors entered in competition: from 6 am to 10.30 am on Saturdays in summer and 7 am to 11.30 am in winter, and on Sunday mornings from 9 am to 10.30 am, later on Ambrose days. Visitors with an official handicap are welcome in competitions and can win the event of the day, though not member-only trophies or monthly medals. Members book their competition times through the club’s online portal, and earlier tee times for the Sunday competition can only be booked by ringing the pro shop.

What players say about it

Barnwell Park is a public course with plenty of regular players, and its reviews are spread across golf apps, booking sites and venue directories, many of them as much about the clubhouse as the course. 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 favour

• Value is the most common theme. Players describe it as one of the cheaper eighteen-hole rounds in Sydney, and nine holes as an easy option for a short visit.
• It is repeatedly recommended for beginners, juniors and anyone working on their short game, and parents mention bringing children to play.
• The water views are named in most accounts, and several players single out the back nine as quieter and more secluded than the front.
• The course is flat and easy to walk, and its location so close to the city is a large part of its appeal.
• Several reviews report fairways and greens in good condition, and some call the course well kept for its traffic.
• The welcome at the pro shop and in the clubhouse is often mentioned, and the restaurant draws favourable comments for its food and its outlook over the bay.
• Better players say that, short as it is, the small greens and tight lines make it a real test of iron play.

What comes up against

• It can be busy, particularly in the afternoons and at weekends, and some players report a slow pace of play at those times.
• Conditioning is reported unevenly: some find it good, others say the course could be better maintained, and tee boxes come in for criticism.
• The greens are small and the fairways tight, which some players enjoy and others find unforgiving for a course sold as easy.
• Some reviewers think the price is high for what they consider a basic layout, which sits oddly with the majority view on value.
• Older reviews describe the clubhouse as dated; more recent ones, after the restaurant opened, are kinder.
• The shared use with FootGolf and disc golf draws a safety complaint from the non-golfing side.
• The split between council course and members’ clubhouse shows in replies to reviews, where the club refers complaints about the course to the council.

Getting there and when to go

The course is in Five Dock, in the City of Canada Bay, about eight kilometres west of the Sydney CBD and about ten kilometres from Sydney Airport in a straight line. The clubhouse is at 551 Lyons Road West, Five Dock NSW 2046. The pro shop, where visitors check in, is at the corner of Lyons Road and William Street, beside the first tee, and the course map marks parking near both the pro shop and the clubhouse.

The course is open seven days a week. The council gives its hours as sunrise to sunset; the club’s booking page lists the pro shop as open from 6 am to 6 pm. Visitor tee times are booked online, up to a month ahead according to the pro shop, or by phone, and the council says weekend bookings are essential. Remember that Saturday and Sunday mornings belong to the club’s competitions, so a visitor’s best weekend window is usually later in the day, and weekday mornings are often taken by the competitions listed above.

Sydney’s climate allows golf all year. A flat, bayside course on reclaimed land can be soft after heavy rain, and the wind off the water is the main variable on any day. The club’s dress rules, which it applies to members and visitors alike, exclude athletic or training shorts, denim shorts or jeans (with a narrow exception for neat women’s shorts), singlets, thongs and football gear.

Green fees

Green fees are set under the council’s arrangements and collected by the pro shop, with separate prices for nine and eighteen holes, and members of the club pay reduced rates. See the pro shop’s booking page.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location; the club’s own site for the address, the par, the restaurant, opening hours and the club’s history; the history of the club published in 2008 for the reclamation of the land, the naming of the park, the dates of 1952, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1974 and the purchase of the clubhouse land; the course map produced for the City of Canada Bay for the par and length of every hole; the local rules of August 2024 for the canal, boundaries, dropping zones and dress rules; the club’s competition page for the weekly programme; the City of Canada Bay’s golf page for ownership, the bays, the hours and the booking advice; the pro shop’s site for its services and the one-month booking window; the club’s booking page for the pro shop’s location and hours; and the public tender listing of May 2026 for the course management contract. The hole descriptions summarise the 2018 notes on the pro shop’s earlier website. The stroke index is the one published on the Hole19 and 18Birdies course pages, which agree. The multi-sport course’s opening year comes from the FlySpot disc golf directory. Straight-line distances are calculated from the coordinates.

Some sources disagree. The course map gives 3,478 metres; other listings give 3,422 metres from the blue tees and 3,363 from the red, the council about 3,400 metres, and one app a length in imperial units that converts to about 3,410 metres. We follow the map, which is the document the club publishes, and note that it gives one set of lengths only. The 2018 hole notes give the 7th as 285 metres against 261 on the map. Course and slope ratings published by booking sites differ so widely between sources that we do not report them. The club places itself on Hen and Chicken Bay, the council speaks of Canada Bay and Kings Bay; all three name parts of the same stretch of water off Five Dock. The pro shop’s hours and the council’s sunrise-to-sunset wording also differ. One app lists a driving range that neither the club nor the council mentions, so we leave it out. We could not read the Golf NSW, Golf Australia and GolfPass pages for the club, which blocked our requests. We have not confirmed public transport routes and do not give any.

The opinion section summarises public reviews on golf apps, booking sites and venue directories, read in October 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, we reproduce no quotations and we give no ratings or review counts. Many reviews predate the change of pro shop operator in 2026.

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.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our Australian directory:

• Chatswood Golf Club — 8 km
• Canterbury Public Golf Course — 9 km
• The Australian Golf Club — 11 km
• The Lakes Golf Club — 11 km