Palmer Coolum Resort Golf Course (formerly Hyatt Regency Coolum)

The golf course at Palmer Coolum Resort lies at 1 Warran Road, Yaroomba, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, between the beaches of Coolum and the slopes of Mount Coolum. For more than twenty years it was the course of the Hyatt Regency Coolum, and many golfers still know it by that name. Since Clive Palmer bought the resort in 2011 it has been the Palmer Coolum Resort, and the club’s own site calls the course the Palmer Coolum Resort Golf Course. On OpenStreetMap it appears as the Beachside Championship Golf Course, a name we have not found in any of the club’s material.

The course is an 18-hole, par 72 championship layout designed by the American architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. It opened in 1988, according to Where2Golf, Top 100 Golf Courses and Planet Golf, and from 2002 to 2012 it hosted eleven consecutive editions of the Australian PGA Championship. Today it is a public course: the club takes visitors seven days a week, but bookings are essential.

The status of the resort needs a clear word, because it confuses visitors. The hotel side closed in 2015 and has not reopened as a resort open to the public. The golf course, on the other hand, is operating. The club published a new schedule of green fees dated 15 May 2026, its opening hours page lists tee times, a pro shop and a driving range seven days a week, and golfers were still logging rounds on the course on public scoring apps in October 2026. If you are coming to play golf, you can; if you are looking for a room on site, you will not find one.

From Hyatt to Palmer

The resort was built in the late 1980s as the Hyatt Regency Coolum, a large spa and golf resort set on about 150 hectares on both sides of David Low Way. Robert Trent Jones Jr designed the original course in 1988, among melaleuca and eucalyptus country, lakes and wetlands, with a run of holes on the beach side of the highway. Australian Golf Digest and Planet Golf both describe that original layout as one that relied more on its lakes and tropical vegetation than on dramatic contours.

The Australian PGA Championship, one of the oldest professional events in the country, came to Coolum in 2002 and stayed there until 2012. Winners in that period included Peter Lonard, Peter Senior, Robert Allenby, Nick O’Hern, Geoff Ogilvy and Greg Chalmers; Daniel Popovic won the last edition held there, in 2012, by which time the venue had become Palmer Coolum. The club’s home page lists Adam Scott, Jason Day, Greg Norman, Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler among the players who have competed on the course.

The course changed shape in the late 2000s. The holes on the beach side of the highway were given up for housing, and Trent Jones Jr was brought back to build replacement holes on unused land inland. Here the sources disagree on the detail. Planet Golf dates the loss of the beachside holes to a 2008 to 2009 redesign and says the original 4th to 8th were affected; Australian Golf Digest, in 2017, says six new holes were added to the twelve that remained; Where2Golf speaks of five new holes, introduced from 2007; and Top 100 Golf Courses speaks of six. All agree that the present course is partly original and partly rebuilt by the same architect.

Clive Palmer bought the resort in 2011. The years that followed were turbulent: an animatronic dinosaur park, known as Palmersaurus, opened on the property in December 2013; the PGA Championship left for Royal Pines on the Gold Coast after the 2012 edition; and the resort closed to guests in 2015. In November 2015 Golf Industry Central reported that the gates had been locked and the golf course briefly closed in the middle of a dispute with unit holders; staff expected the closure to last about a week. Where2Golf, updated in early 2024, says the course has otherwise stayed open throughout.

A refurbishment of the resort was announced in March 2021 at 100 million dollars. In April 2022 a spokesman told Sunshine Coast News that part of the resort should be operating by the end of that year or early in 2023, and described the golf course as back to championship quality. In January 2025 Golf Industry Central reported a renovation now estimated at 150 million dollars, with about 380 villas, residences, studios and lots planned, buggy paths for the golf course and walking and cycling links to the beach, and no decision yet on whether the resort would reopen in one go or in stages. We have found no announcement of a reopening of the accommodation since then.

The course in figures

The scorecard the club publishes on its site dates from July 2022. It lists three sets of tees, all par 72: black at 6,273 metres, blue at 5,815 metres and red at 4,981 metres. It gives a course rating of 74 and a slope of 140 from the black tees, 72 and 138 from the blue, and 73 and 129 from the red. Distances on the course are in metres: the card notes that green distance markers indicate 150 metres to the centre of the green.

The figures elsewhere do not all match. The club’s own home page gives a length of 6,137 metres and slopes of 138 for the black tees, 135 for the blue and 125 for the red. Where2Golf lists 6,137, 5,768 and 5,263 metres. The 18Birdies scoring app gives a rating of 73.4 and a slope of 138 from the black tees. These differences probably reflect different ratings over time and changes to the tees, but no source explains them, so we give the club’s card as the reference and note the rest.

Each nine is par 36. The front nine has two par 3s, two par 5s and five par 4s; the back nine has three par 3s, three par 5s and three par 4s. From the black tees the par 3s run from 135 metres at the 15th to 204 metres at the 5th, and the par 5s from 484 metres at the 3rd to 549 metres at the 6th. The hardest hole on the stroke index is the 9th, a par 4 of 390 metres from the black tees; the 18th is index 2.

The course takes up about a third of the resort property, according to Top 100 Golf Courses. The club advertises PGA professionals on staff and a driving range of 250 metres; Where2Golf describes the range as 260 metres and floodlit. Practice facilities also include a putting green and a chipping area.

What it asks of you

Coolum is not a long course by championship standards, and that is not where its difficulty lies. Every description of it, from Planet Golf to Australian Golf Digest, comes back to the same two things: water and vegetation. The club’s hole diagrams show lakes or wetlands in play on a large share of the holes, often running along one side of the fairway, and dense tropical bush and tall trees framing most of the others. On many holes the fairway is reasonably generous, but a miss that leaves it tends to be either wet or blocked.

The par 3s are the clearest example. On the 2022 card and diagrams, the 2nd, at 167 metres from the black tees, is played over water to a green set beyond a pond, and the 5th, at 204 metres, also asks for a carry over water to a green framed by trees. The 15th is the shortest hole, at 135 metres, but the diagram shows a green surrounded by bunkers. Older reviews single out a downhill par 3 alongside a lake to a green that hugs the water, and a finishing par 4 that bends around a lake towards the clubhouse in the manner of the 18th at TPC Sawgrass. Those reviews were written under an older numbering; the current card appears to have swapped the two nines, which is why the hole numbers in older writing do not always match what you will find on the tee.

The par 5s offer the scoring chances, but not freely. The 6th, the longest hole at 549 metres, runs alongside water on the diagram, and the 10th, at 518 metres, has a lake beside the tee shot. The 3rd, at 484 metres, is the shortest of them and the most likely to be reached in two by a long hitter. On the par 4s the theme is position rather than power: several are under 350 metres from the black tees, the 7th only 324, and with water or trees close to the line, an iron or hybrid off the tee is often the sensible play.

Australian Golf Digest’s 2017 review called the course a supreme challenge that stays enjoyable throughout, and suited to everyday golfers who like to be tested. The slope figures support that reading: 138 from the blue tees is high for a resort course and puts Coolum among the more demanding layouts on the Sunshine Coast for an average player. The 18Birdies app lists the course as very hard.

What that means for your game

Choose your tees honestly. For most club golfers the blue tees, at about 5,800 metres, are long enough, and the reds cut nearly 1,300 metres off the black course. Take more balls than usual, especially if you play from the back. Read the card before each tee shot: on a course where water runs along so many holes, the safe side is not always obvious from the tee. Expect wind off the ocean on some days and heavy, humid conditions in summer. And allow time on the putting green; reviewers describe greens with real movement, where getting to the right level matters.

Condition and facilities today

Conditioning is the subject on which opinions about Coolum differ most, and it has changed over the years. When the resort closed, the course was kept going with a reduced maintenance team, and it dropped out of national rankings for several years. In February 2021 Top 100 Golf Courses described it as on the mend, with conditioning still not perfect. Where2Golf now cites a rank of 75th in Australia in the Australian Golf Digest list for 2026 to 2027; Top 100 Golf Courses currently places it 91st in Australia and 12th in Queensland.

The pro shop is open seven days from 6.30am to 6.30pm according to the club, and the range from 7am to 4.30pm, with the last bucket sold at 3.30pm. Carts, pull buggies and hire clubs are available. The large clubhouse, built in the Queenslander style, looks over the lake and the closing holes. Accommodation, which made the place in the Hyatt years, is not available while the resort remains closed. Listings disagree about food and drink: the 18Birdies app lists a restaurant, while Golfshake says it has no information about a bar or restaurant, so it is worth asking when you book.

What players say about it

Public comment on the course is mixed, and much of it is shaped by the history of the resort. Reviews from 2014 and 2015, when the resort was closing, are among the harshest; more recent ones are more measured. The points below summarise what recurs in reviews on travel sites, golf booking and scoring apps and golf guides, read in October 2026. They 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

• The layout itself. Even critical reviewers acknowledge a strong Trent Jones Jr design, with lakes, bush and a variety of holes, and the press reviews call it a genuine test.
• The setting, with Mount Coolum in view from the back nine and wildlife on the course, including kangaroos.
• The greens and fairways, which several recent reviewers describe as in good shape, with greens that roll true.
• The sense of playing a course with history, where the Australian PGA was decided eleven times.
• Pace of play, which the scoring apps rate as fast; the course is rarely crowded.

What comes up against

• The surrounds, bunkers and paths. Several reviewers in 2024 and 2025 describe bunkers short of sand or neglected, particularly on the back nine, though others found them in good condition.
• Value for money. A recurring complaint is that the price is high for the condition and the facilities.
• Facilities around the golf: the pro shop, carts and clubhouse services draw criticism, and there is no accommodation or full restaurant on site while the resort is closed.
• The feeling of a resort in limbo, with the hotel buildings closed and the redevelopment still unfinished.
• Inconsistency over time: reports from one season to the next can differ sharply, so a review from a few years ago may say little about the course today.

Who it suits

Coolum suits golfers who want to play a former tournament course with a real design pedigree and are prepared to accept that it is not the polished resort it was in the Hyatt years. It is a good choice for mid to low handicappers visiting the Sunshine Coast, and for higher handicappers who are happy to play from the forward tees and treat the water with respect. Golfers looking for a complete resort stay with golf on the doorstep will need to stay elsewhere: Where2Golf names Twin Waters and Noosa Springs within 30 kilometres, and Mount Coolum Golf Club is close by.

Getting there and when to go

The course lies in Yaroomba, just north of Mount Coolum, on the Sunshine Coast, about 115 kilometres north of Brisbane according to Where2Golf. The entrance is on Warran Road, off David Low Way. In a straight line, Sunshine Coast Airport is about five and a half kilometres to the south, calculated from the coordinates. The ocean is close: Where2Golf notes that the shoreline is in places only about 500 metres from the course, although the holes have no sea views.

The course plays all year. The Sunshine Coast is subtropical, and the cooler, drier months from May to September usually give the most comfortable conditions; summer is hot and humid, with afternoon storms. The club does not publish a starting time for tee times, only that they are available seven days a week, subject to course conditions and availability.

Bookings are essential and are taken by phone. The club’s site gives two numbers: 07 5440 2222 on its booking, contact and opening hours pages, and 07 5449 3366 in its header, which is also the pro shop number printed on the 2022 scorecard. Group bookings are handled by email through the club.

Green fees

Rates are set by the club, with separate prices for 18 and 9 holes, with or without a shared cart, for twilight golf, and for juniors under 18, as well as range balls and equipment hire. See the club’s own site.

How this page was put together

The factual frame comes from public sources. OpenStreetMap provided the location and the name under which the course is mapped. The club’s site provided the architect, the par, the home page length and slopes, the driving range, the address, the phone numbers, the opening hours and the dated schedule of fees showing that the course is operating in 2026. The club’s scorecard of July 2022 and its course tour provided the length, par, rating, slope and stroke index of every hole and the layout of the holes. Wikipedia’s page on the Australian PGA Championship provided the years and winners at Coolum, and its page on Palmer Coolum Resort the purchase, the dinosaur park and the 2015 closure. Where2Golf, Planet Golf, Top 100 Golf Courses and a 2017 review in Australian Golf Digest provided the opening year, the redesign, the rankings and the descriptions of the course. Golf Industry Central reported the brief closure of 2015 and the renovation plans of 2025, and Sunshine Coast News the refurbishment of 2022. The distance to the airport is calculated from the coordinates.

Some sources disagree. The club’s card gives 6,273 metres from the black tees and its home page 6,137 metres; ratings and slopes also differ between the card, the home page and the apps. The number of holes rebuilt in the late 2000s is given as five or six, and the date as 2007 or 2008 to 2009. The club lists two booking numbers. Hole numbers in older reviews do not match the current card. We have not found any official date for the reopening of the accommodation. The opinion section summarises public reviews on travel sites, golf apps and guides, read in October 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.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our Australian directory:

• Ashgrove Golf Club — 100 km
• Coral Cove Golf Course — 195 km
• Bargara Golf Club — 203 km
• Bundaberg Golf Club — 204 km