Greg Norman to redesign Greg Norman's unprofitable Pelican Waters golf course.

5 Sep 2017

The Sunshine Coast Daily is reporting this week, that local council on the Sunshine Coast have approved plans for the Pelican Waters Golf Course to be totally rearranged to accommodate an additional 270 home sites. New house blocks range from 450m2 to 700m2, and will be accompanied by around 70 units and townhouses.

The golf course is being reversed by Greg Norman’s company, with the nines flipped and the front half essentially looping to the inside of the current opening stretch, rather than as previously arranged on the outside. The changes will allow the 8th and 9th holes to be set aside for housing.

From what can be viewed on masterplan documents loaded onto the council website, most, if not all, of the front nine will change and potentially the back nine as well. The first hole corridor, for example, will now contain both the 10th and 18th holes, while the old 2nd will now house the 11th and 17th holes. The par three 17th is slated to be a new “signature” hole at Pelican Waters, its green pushed hard against the large front nine lake as opposed to holes like the current 6th and 14th which play across lakes.

Interestingly, part of the development submission to council included a startling confession that Pelican Waters had never traded profitably since opening in 2000. Though seemingly well received by golfers in the area, the Greg Norman design was not forecast to generate an acceptable commercial return for at least another 7-10 years.

The developers blamed the diminishing trend of golf as a sport, but added in their submission documents that the revised Greg Norman layout ‘has significant potential to improve revenue generation opportunities for the clubhouse, as one of the key drivers for redevelopment of the Pelican Waters Golf Course site.”

The submission added, “A significant feature (of the redesigned course) will be a new signature 17th hole which has the green located on a proposed island over the water. This will enhance course experience and improve views from the existing residents to the southeast….(and) significantly enhances the course experience and the opportunity for expenditure at the clubhouse mid and end game.”

Beyond the promise of improved clubhouse revenue, the developers will be clearly hoping the new Greg Norman golf course outperforms the previous one.

From the Sunshine Coast Daily:

PELICAN Waters Golf Club has been given Sunshine Coast Council approval to rearrange its 18-hole course to fit in 270 new homes.

There will be a mix of about 200 detached homes on block sizes ranging from 450sq m to 700sq m as well as about 70 units and townhouses, the Sunshine Coast Daily reports.

It is a plan the club first proposed in about 2012.

A development report submitted on its behalf in April last year said the club had not traded profitably since it opened in 2000.

It said the club did not expect to break even for at least another two to four years and might not get the required amount of members to do so for up to eight years.

“Independent forecasts conclude that Pelican Waters Golf Club will not generate an acceptable level of commercial return for at least seven to 10 years,” the application read.

It suggested residential development as a solution.

“Such development would generate sufficient funds to enable continued operation of the club until such time as new members and other revenue streams, sufficient to sustain the club in the long term, are derived from new residents and the existing community.

“In the absence of this source of funding, the viability of Pelican Waters Golf Club is precarious.”

Pelican Waters Golf Club project manager Steve Knudsen said the club was heading in the right direction.

“In the past five years we have seen a significant improvement in the trading,” Mr Knudsen said.

“Slow, gradual improvement was probably not going to be the solution for financial viability going forward.”

The application process involved a trade-off between the council and the club over environmentally significant wetlands on its western edge.

They are home to vulnerable species the wallum froglet and swamp crayfish.

Mr Knudsen said the club had agreed to rehabilitate about 33 hectares of its site that had frontage to Bells Creek.

He said earthworks conducted nearly 20 years ago when the club’s plan was to have an extra nine holes would be reverted back to wetlands by removing fill and revegetation. That land will then be given to the council.

In return, some of the wetlands closer to the course will be cleared for housing.

“We are trying to achieve a balance across the site,” Mr Knudsen said.

The club has Commonwealth, state and local government environmental approvals for the development.

Mr Knudsen said Greg Norman’s golf course design team, who created the original layout, would be engaged to design the new layout.

Players will go around in an anti-clockwise direction rather than the current clockwise layout.

Mr Knudsen said he expected the club’s membership would grow from its current 500 with the addition of the homes.

A new driving range, mini golf course, pro-shop, splash-type children’s wet play area and clubhouse redevelopment are also expected to add to its appeal.

“We are very keen to attract families to the club and make it available to the whole community,” Mr Knudsen said.

He said the club needed to finalise its plans for expanding a lake on its course before it could have a set time for when redevelopment works would start.

Material dug from the lake will be used to boost new housing blocks above flood levels.

He said works would begin in the second half of next year at the earliest.