The winter golf trip: Queensland, the tropics, Thailand, Vietnam
Our winter is their high season: book in the right order, fly or hire the clubs, and plan fewer rounds than you think.
Winter in Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart means five-degree mornings, wet fairways and cart bans. It is the season of the golf trip — and the season in which people pay peak prices without realising it. How to plan it in the right order.
The classic winter destinations
Queensland is the obvious one: the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast are at their best in July and August, with warm days, low humidity and firm couch fairways. It is also, for the same reason, peak season, and prices reflect it.
Port Douglas and Cairns extend the same logic further north, with the dry season running through the middle of the year.
Thailand, around Hua Hin and Bangkok, and Vietnam, around Danang and Ho Chi Minh City, offer a large number of good courses, caddies included as standard, and packages that often work out cheaper than a Queensland trip once accommodation is counted.
New Zealand is the counter-intuitive one: winter there is a poor idea, but the shoulder months either side of the Australian summer are excellent and quiet.
Peak season is not what you think
For the northern destinations, the Australian winter is the high season. Green fees and resorts peak from June to August. The value sits in the shoulder months — May, and September into October — when the weather is still reliable and the field is thinner.
Book in the right order
- Flights first, they vary the most.
- Tee times next, with the courses directly or through the resort, which often gets better slots and combined rates.
- Accommodation last, comparing packages with and without green fees: depending on how many rounds you plan, the advantage reverses.
Take the clubs or hire
Domestic carriers treat a golf bag differently from one another: with some it falls inside the checked allowance, with others it is oversize sporting equipment that must be declared, and the low-cost carriers charge nearly always. Check the conditions when you book, not at the counter, and use a hard or padded travel cover.
Hiring at the resort, which most offer, frequently costs less than flying the bag both ways for three or four rounds — at the price of playing without your own wedges and putter, which is not a small thing.
How many rounds
Anyone who has not played since May overestimates their stamina. Across a week, four or five spaced rounds beat seven consecutive ones: an untrained body will not take it, and the last days become a chore. In the tropics, add the humidity to that calculation and consider twilight rounds.
What to pack
- Sunscreen, a broad hat and more water than you think: the winter sun up north is still severe.
- A second pair of shoes; morning dew does not dry during the day.
- Proof of handicap: some courses ask for a maximum.
Before you go
Check access conditions (handicap limit, dress code, whether carts are compulsory) and the state of the greens: several resorts core and topdress in the shoulder months, and a course in maintenance plays badly. An email to the pro shop settles it. Panxis Golf has no commercial relationship with any of the destinations or tour operators mentioned.
