Rockingham Golf Club

The club was founded in 1947 in the coastal town of Rockingham, forty-odd kilometres south of Perth, and moved a short distance in 1985 to a new site beside Lake Cooloongup. Murray Dawson laid out the present eighteen holes there, carving them out of native bushland rather than clearing it, which is why the course today reads as though it has always been in the trees.

What it asks of you

Generous fairways framed by tuart trees, some of them protected, and by the grass trees that are the signature of this part of Western Australia. It is a bushland course rather than a links or a parkland: the turf is on coastal sand and drains fast, the corridors are wide enough to be fair, and the ground is extremely flat.

The greens are the interest. They are large and they run consistently, and reviewers who came expecting a straightforward country course describe them as deceptively difficult. On flat land with wide corridors, that is where the golf has to happen.

Kangaroos cross the fairways during play and the birdlife is prolific. The routing separates the holes well enough that other groups are usually out of sight, which is a real quality on a course that costs a fraction of the city clubs.

What players say about it

Visitors are welcome with booking advised and the review record is healthy. The notes below summarise recurring themes across specialist golf sites, traveller review pages and player discussion threads. They are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we do not name or quote individual reviewers.

What comes up in its favour

• The bushland setting is the feature everybody mentions: tuarts, grass trees, kangaroos and the sense of being alone on the course.
• Conditioning is well rated and reviewers credit the greenkeeping staff directly.
• The greens are praised for running consistently and for being harder to read than they look.
• Value is strong, and the course is repeatedly recommended as part of the good golf south of Perth.

What comes up against

• The ground is extremely flat, which limits the visual interest and the shot variety.
• Wide corridors mean it will not test a good driver of the ball.
• It is forty-five minutes south of Perth, which puts it outside a casual city itinerary.
• The review record is modest, and any summary of it, including this one, rests on a limited number of accounts.

Getting there and when to go

The club is beside Lake Cooloongup at Rockingham, around forty-five minutes south of Perth by road, with the coastal town and the beaches a few minutes away.

The course plays all year on coastal sand that drains. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable; Perth summers are hot and an early tee time is the sensible choice. Booking is advised.

Green fees

Rates and visitor tee times are handled 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, Wikipedia and published coverage for the club’s history and the 1985 move, and the club’s own site for access and booking. The opinion section summarises public reviews and player discussions read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we do not reproduce or attribute quotes.

We have not played this course, and nothing here is a substitute for that. The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say in what it says. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.