Hands off Moore Park Golf Course. Giving public courses to developers is rough

Listen to some people and you’d imagine that golf is a game exclusively for millionaires, played on perfectly manicured fairways while the public look on forlornly through locked gates.

This week, the use by those supposedly privileged few of precious open space in an ever-congested city was thrown into stark relief as Premier Chris Minns and Lord Mayor Clover Moore announced that half of Moore Park Golf Course will become a public park from 2026. This is a direct consequence of the growing city-south population – a predicted 80,000 residents living nearby by 2040.

But is golf really the sport of pampered elites? My first round is typical of the origin story of every golfer, from professional to once-a-year hacker. Aged 13, with some mates, I carried a bag of my dad’s rusted old clubs and got around the ragged nine-hole Bondi course, on the northern cliffs above the beach, next to the foul-smelling sewage-treatment plant (the word “treatment” demands inverted commas).

A few months later, I took the next step and played at Moore Park, the busiest public course in Australia. Founded in 1913, it currently attracts 500,000 visitors each year.

Moore Park, like hundreds of other local public courses, is where countless hundreds of thousands of young golfers can pay a few dollars and first swing a club. (OK, it’s between $45 and $65 for 18 holes, depending on the day, or as little as $28 for a half-round, but that’s a small fraction of private course fees.) They fall in love with the most beautiful and challenging game that will give them a lifetime of fun, camaraderie and exercise (and yes, moments of extreme frustration).

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According to Golf Australia’s 2020-22 participation report, 1.5 million Australians swung a club on a golf course during that year, and a further 1.2 million played off-course at the likes of driving ranges, mini-golf facilities and simulators. Other sports can only dream of that participation rate. Elitist? Golf is among the most open, democratic and widely played sports in Australia.

But then, a new public park? Sounds great, right? But hang on – Moore Park already is a public park.

When asked if more public golf courses might be up for the chop, Minns used that old politicians’ line that there were no such plans. You don’t have to be a cynic to guess where this is heading.

If Moore Park is cut from 18 holes to nine, what is to stop a future government announcing that – because the increase in open space has made the area so attractive – the other half of the course can now be sold to a developer. The economics could well demand it.

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More people and more dwellings would then lead to where we are right now – a booming population and ever-dwindling amounts of open space. As sure as Tiger Woods will sink a pressure birdie putt, another golf course would be sacrificed on the altar of greed and bad planning.

I blame governments at all levels for manufacturing this crisis. If politicians are crying out for new open spaces to meet the population boom in the Green Square area, then quite frankly it is their own fault. Why was that open space not mandated in the planning controls years ago? By the way, I note that Moore became Lord Mayor 20 years ago and first entered state parliament in 1988.

Sydney is very good at giving over land to property developers, but hopeless at stipulating that those developers install the public infrastructure: the parks, schools and public transport that are needed when thousands of new apartments are built.

A better solution to the problem can be found at the home of golf, the Old Course at St Andrews in Scotland, where no golf is played every Sunday. The course becomes a vast public park. This is not a charming quirk of history. The golf course belongs to the town and its inhabitants. So, they get to use it as they please once a week.

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In the same way, Sydney’s open spaces belong to all of us. That especially applies to our golf courses that (whether you play or not) provide invaluable green infrastructure to fight climate change and give a home to our unique and abundant animal, bird and plant life.

The last thing we should be doing is trading away the one thing that makes Sydney the most liveable of the great global cities – the open spaces, national parks and a sense that we’re all living among beautiful wildlife. And, unlike many countries, the natural beauty of every tree, park, beach and golf course is not the preserve of a wealthy minority. It is a public dividend.

So, hands off Moore Park Golf Course. It belongs to all of us and works perfectly as it stands. If politicians want to tee off on golf, be warned: there are plenty of hazards and bad lies up ahead.

Duncan Fine is a lawyer and columnist.