Terrey Hills Golf & Country Club

Terrey Hills opened in February 1994, designed by Graham Marsh, a Western Australian who won on four continents before turning architect, with Ross Watson. It was the first golf course built in Sydney for more than two decades, and the site is the reason: sandstone bushland on the northern beaches plateau, on the fringe of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, where nobody had been allowed to build anything for a generation.

It has established itself quickly, and now sits inside the Australian top fifty.

What it asks of you

A par 72 cut through native bush, which sets the terms immediately: the corridors are defined by scrub and sandstone rather than by rough, and a ball a few metres offline is not recovered, it is replaced.

The greens are among the largest in Sydney, averaging around 540 square metres, which allows a very wide range of hole positions and means the same green plays quite differently from one week to the next. They run fast, and the wind on this exposed plateau is a constant factor.

The routing is balanced: a more tree-lined front nine opening into a slightly more open back nine, with green complexes defended by a mix of bunkers, greenside water, humps and hollows rather than by any single device.

What players say about it

Guests play by member introduction and the review record is reasonable. 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

• Conditioning is consistently praised, fairways and greens alike.
• The setting is the feature everybody mentions: bushland on the edge of the national park, in view throughout, with no houses or roads visible.
• The greens are admired for their size and for the variety of hole positions that size makes possible.
• The clubhouse and the restaurant draw favourable comment, and more than one account recommends the course to any golfer visiting Sydney.

What comes up against

• The bush is unforgiving. A slightly offline shot is a lost ball, and higher handicappers find the round expensive in more than one sense.
• The exposed plateau means wind is a factor on most days, and the fast greens compound it.
• It is a 1990s course in a city of older ones, and purists rate it below the sand courses closer to the coast.
• Access is by member introduction, which limits both play and the review record.

Getting there and when to go

Terrey Hills is around forty minutes north of central Sydney on the northern beaches plateau, and about an hour from the airport. It sits well alongside a trip that includes the coastal courses further south.

The course plays all year. Spring and autumn give the most reliable weather; summer on the plateau is hot and the wind is at its strongest in the afternoon. Guest play is arranged through a member.

Green fees

Guest conditions and 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, Wikipedia and published architecture coverage for the history and the design, and the club’s own site for access. The opinion section summarises public reviews and guest accounts 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.