{"id":603502,"date":"2026-05-25T19:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T19:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/603502\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T19:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T19:58:09","slug":"on-the-worlds-longest-golf-course-the-fairways-are-rough-and-the-dog-legs-might-be-dingoes-western-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/603502\/","title":{"rendered":"On the world\u2019s longest golf course, the fairways are rough and the dog-legs might be dingoes\u2019 | Western Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

About 15,600km from St Andrews in Scotland and about 17,000km from Mar-a-Lago in Florida sits Eucla, Western Australia<\/a>, where on a fine sunny day the players from an extraordinary golf tournament pose for a photo.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re playing the Nullarbor Links, the world\u2019s longest golf course, which runs for 1,365km (850 miles) across ancient, arid desert in outback Australia. Other than the game itself, it has nothing whatever in common with its famous counterparts \u2013 or any other golf course in the world.<\/p>\n

Of the 25 participants, a few opted to camp rather than seeking a warm roadhouse bed each night. <\/p>\n

The 18-hole, par-72 course starts at Ceduna in South Australia<\/a> and crosses the flat limestone bedrock to reach Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Needless to say, there\u2019s a lot of driving between each hole.<\/p>\n

Players scrap it out on scrubby dirt and worn astroturf, from behind shedding gums and across airstrips, dodging snakes, spiders and wombats along the way.<\/p>\n

Map showing the location of the Nullarbor Links, the world\u2019s longest golf course<\/a><\/p>\n

Graeme and Bea Wilmot organise the annual 10-day Chasing the Sun tournament, which wrapped up on Saturday.<\/p>\n

They play on sand greens<\/a> in Ceduna and manicured lawns in Kalgoorlie, but in between it\u2019s a different story.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything between the tee off and the green is wild outback. There are lots of snakes, lizards, spiders, wombats, dingoes, camels \u2026\u201d Bea Wilmot says.<\/p>\n

Alan first drove across the Nullarbor Plain in 1974 with a mate in a beat-up Holden HR ute, when the road was unsealed. Then, he was moving from Nowra in NSW to Perth for work: now he\u2019s back to make the roadtrip with a set of clubs. He won the \u2018Hackers\u2019 trophy.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve had people from Germany, Vietnam, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa play, along with a fair number of Australia\u2019s grey nomads.<\/p>\n

Wilmot \u201creluctantly\u201d went on her first tournament with Graeme in 2017.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the golf fanatic and I was the golf widow. Over the 10 days I went from golf widow to golf tragic,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time we got home, I\u2019d ordered clubs and joined the local golf club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furry bikinis and Jimmy Carter<\/p>\n

The Nullarbor Links names holes instead of numbering them \u2013 because you can play from Ceduna to Kalgoorlie or the other way around.<\/p>\n

\"There\u2019sThere\u2019s a hole-in-one competition and a putting challenge between the big drives.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach hole is unique. They\u2019re all special in their own way,\u201d Wilmot says, but he gives a passing mention to The Wombat Hole at Nundroo, named after the southern hairy-nosed variety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a par five with a dog leg. You can\u2019t see the green from the tee box so you have to go around the corner and hit blindly. There\u2019s rocks and everything in the way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it crosses the RFDS [Royal Flying Doctor Service] strip.\u201d<\/p>\n

The groups raise money for the RFDS along the way by fining players for anything stupid or funny they do, and rattling the tin at roadhouse stops.<\/p>\n

A passing couple takes a Chasing the Sun group photo in front of the Border Village Kangaroo. <\/p>\n

Other notable holes include the Nullarbor Nymph at Eucla, named after a 1971 story about a girl in a \u201csort of furry bikini\u201d, thought to be rabbit skin, who was supposedly running around the outback with a mob of kangaroos.<\/p>\n

The State Library of Western Australia notes that the story was \u201ccreated by beer<\/a>\u201d, when a \u201cyarn about a half-naked sheila living in the desert with the kangaroos\u201d made up by some blokes in a bar spread to become one of Australia\u2019s most famous hoaxes.<\/p>\n

John D\u2019Arcy holds two sets of clubs while his partner hunts for a ball in the low-lying scrub at the Windmills par four in Penong.<\/p>\n

At Balladonia, the SkyLab par three pays tribute to chunks of the SkyLab spacecraft <\/a>\u2013 parts of Nasa\u2019s abandoned space research laboratory \u2013 that landed nearby in July 1979.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US president [Jimmy Carter] personally rang Balladonia Hotel Motel to apologise for Skylab falling on them,\u201d the Nullarbor Links website<\/a> notes.<\/p>\n

The roadhouse is where the idea for the golf course was spawned by manager, Bob Bongiorno, Wilmot says.<\/p>\n

\u201c[He] came up with the idea to help prevent driver fatigue, reduce fatalities and raise awareness of the little towns across the 1,365kms of the Eyre Highway,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The golfers play a few holes each day, stopping for organised games and events, meals and drinks, and a bit of sightseeing.<\/p>\n

The Nullarbor Nymph hole at Eucla is part abandoned golf club, part abandoned firing range. The first hole in the Western Australian leg, it\u2019s a 315m-straight featureless drive, with nothing between the tee and pin. <\/p>\n

At the Nullarbor Roadhouse, the Big Whale \u2013 one of Australia\u2019s \u201cbig things<\/a>\u201d \u2013 sits between the petrol pumps.<\/p>\n

At Border Village, straddling SA and WA, the group poses around Rooey II, a giant kangaroo offering Vegemite to passersby.<\/p>\n

The nearby world cities sign shows it\u2019s 2,080km to Sydney; 15,075km to New York, 17,517km to London.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re all sporting their team T-shirts, adorned with classic Australian road signs warning of crossing wildlife.<\/p>\n

Paul Windle combines his team T-shirt with bright yellow trousers, yellow argyle socks, a yellow flat cap and, often, a Lonsdale Pacifico cigar.<\/p>\n

The avid golfer from the northern New South Wales town of Murwillumbah and his \u201cgolf nut\u201d partner, Kathryn Newcombe, took six weeks\u2019 holiday to chase the sun.<\/p>\n

Paul Windle at sunrise in Ceduna on day one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had this long off work before,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree times I\u2019ve woken up and thought I had to go in \u2026 but all I have to do is play golf.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he\u2019s never seen anything like the Nullarbor scenery, but he does have one complaint.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a little ripped off because everything is so green [after recent rain],\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s meant to be all red dirt, but there\u2019s been so much rain everything\u2019s green \u2026 That\u2019s probably something not many people will get to see either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Keep your hands out of holes!\u2019Anna Clune mid-hole on the Nullarbor Plain. She proudly took home the Most Colourfully Dressed award.<\/p>\n

The Nullarbor is the traditional land of the Mirning people, but the name comes from the Latin for \u201cno trees\u201d. The golf course crosses the lands of other First Nations people and three time zones \u2013 thanks to the idiosyncratic Central Western zone<\/a> that is 45 minutes ahead of the rest of WA and 45 minutes behind South Australia.<\/p>\n

The Nullarbor Links website advises players to be careful not to step on snakes, or disturb holes in the ground as they \u201ccould be homes for large spiders, wombats or snakes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep your hands out of holes!\u201d it warns.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a different world to Dent Island, a verdant idyll in the Whitsundays ringed by beaches. Dent Island is home to the Hamilton Island golf club, run by Leanne Balkin and Scott Armstrong, who took a break from the tropics to play the Nullarbor Links.<\/p>\n

Serving as a quarantine checkpoint and vital fuelling bay, the Border Village roadhouse is an essential stop when crossing the Nullarbor, especially travelling east to west. Barry Upton tees off at the Border Kangaroo par three. <\/p>\n

Balkin says her favourite part of the course is the \u201cshenanigans\u201d between holes, such as searching for buried treasure at the Eucla beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou all had to chip [the golf ball] to where you thought [the treasure] was buried,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my favourite because I won.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her advice to others? \u201cDon\u2019t bring yellow balls,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrows steal the yellow balls. They will swoop down and take your ball off the fairway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grant Hart is the music man who has been keeping the troops entertained for four years. \u201cThis year\u2019s been amazing,\u201d he says, for three reasons: because of the people; because he\u2019s been practising at home on a driving range he set up; and because the night before they had a cracker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI play every hit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Nathan Down is the youngest player at 35. He did the road trip solo, from Melbourne to Kalgoorlie and back, a distance of about 6,000km, to play 18 holes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eagles, Van Morrison, Elvis. Eagle Rock, Khe Sanh, the Aussie pub rock that people love. They want 60s, 70s, and 80s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done thousands of gigs. You don\u2019t always win. Last night was an absolute winner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Windle says Grant \u2013 an \u201cabsolute legend\u201d \u2013 was acting like a pirate at the gig, but when pressed on details says something akin to \u201cwhat goes on tour, stays on tour\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nathan Down, 35, is a couple of decades or more younger than the general demographic. He wanted to take his 1982 series Land Rover on an adventure, so he drove it from Melbourne to Chasing the Sun. He says he could \u201ctalk to a brick wall\u201d so \u201cgot along like a house on fire\u201d with the rest of the crew.<\/p>\n

The Big Whale out the front of the Nullarbor roadhouse, which is just inland from the Great Australian Bight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact we are all here due to a similar interest automatically connects us all,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach and every day is an adventure with 25 others that I\u2019ll be friends [with] for life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bea Wilmot says if you\u2019re looking for manicured lawns, \u201cdon\u2019t bother coming\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if you want to experience the true Aussie outback, this course is for you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 15,600km from St Andrews in Scotland and about 17,000km from Mar-a-Lago in Florida sits Eucla, Western Australia,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-603502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}