It’s hard to escape the references – it’s probably the reason that you’ve come to the Hunter Valley, after all – the approach to Cypress Lakes leaves you in no doubt that you’re in hardcore wine country.
Vineyards and cellar doors with those oh-so esoteric label names dot the landscape, luring out its own kind of devotees to go from one to the next, as surely as they were going from tee to fairway to green.
The references don’t stop when you arrive at Cypress, which is noted not only for its golf course but as the site of the Golden Door Spa. There’s a cellar door hard by the 9th tee, and all the tee markers are in the shape of wine bottles. There are vines around the layout, not exactly hazards but neither places you want to hit into, and the course itself has its own wine.
In keeping with the theme, the golf at Cypress Lakes is best sipped rather than quaffed. The course was designed by American Steve Smyers, a Florida-based architect and high-level competitive amateur who has recently held several senior positions with the United States Golf Association’s executive committee. While much of his work is based in the United States, and Cypress Lakes remains his only Australian design, Smyers has travelled extensively around the golf world, and his Australian wife Sherrin is a former LPGA Tour pro. These broader horizons helped instil in Smyers an affinity for the qualities of classic, ground-game golf, like that found on British links and the Melbourne Sandbelt.
At Cypress, he was able to turn what was a challenging site to build on and a drawn-out construction process into a good example of strategic golf. With each nine boasting a distinct character – the outward half is relatively treeless, open and rolling, where the inward is more defined, with sharper falls and rises as it winds its way below the high point of the resort – the course contains a variety of hole types, from drive-and-pitch par-4s and reachable par-5s to stern, long par-3s and what was, at one point, the longest golf hole in the land. In every case, position is paramount, with golfers presented with the task of plotting rather than blasting – again, sipping, not quaffing.
For those whose last visit to Cypress Lakes was a while back, as it was for your reviewer, the first notable difference is the change to the order of the course. The round used to open on a crescent-shaped par-5, not too long at 450 metres max but markedly uphill, and the drive had to clear a large water hazard. It was a tough way to start, particularly for the resort visitors indulging in a hit, and clogged pace-of-play from the outset.
