Fairway to heaven: Mat Goggin ready to unveil Seven Mile Beach golfing paradise to the world
‘The course itself is unbelievable, and has surpassed all my expectations’: Champion Tasmanian golfer Mathew Goggin is taking it up a level with this new golf course.
Tasmania
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It’s a short drive from the old Oasis hamburger store at Seven Mile Beach to the site of Australia’s hottest new golf course.
But for champion Tasmanian player Mathew Goggin, the distance between his favourite teen eatery and the recently completed Clayton, DeVries & Pont-designed layout is measured in years, not kilometres.
It was from the Oasis in the early 1990s — during breaks in junior competition at nearby Royal Hobart — that the talented youngster first explored the peninsula’s heavily wooded dunes, and became convinced of their potential for world-class golf facilities.
Fast-forward to 2024, and Goggin’s youthful vision has become reality, with a spectacular course named Seven Mile Beach set to welcome its first paying customers after a 15-year planning and construction process.
While the full course remains on track to be unveiled by the end of summer, Goggin revealed to the Mercury that an 11-hole loop supported by temporary amenities would open early to satisfy already sky-high demand.
“It’s really for the early adopters, those golfers who are really excited and want to be ambassadors for Seven Mile Beach,” Goggin said of the stage-one opening, which will take place before the end of the year.
“The course itself is unbelievable, and has surpassed all my expectations.
“Players basically have one green strip to follow, across the course’s high and low points, without ever feeling they have done a big walk.
“Golf course designers should probably get landscape architecture awards, given they are trying to tell a story and get players to use a whole site.”
High on Goggin’s list of design priorities was the inclusion of public walking trails throughout the course, allowing everyone to enjoy the site’s 360-degree views and beautiful coastal terrain.
The trail network links to the course clubhouse so visitors can enjoy a meal or coffee if they choose, and also includes access to the main car park, and beach.
“This is the whole point of a public course built on public land,” Goggin said.
“In the UK, residents enjoy a ‘right to roam’, while the St Andrews course is not open on Sundays and people come to have picnics.
“Seven Mile Beach is such a beautiful landscape, and it’s not just for golfers.”
Goggin is confident that players and non-players alike will be stunned by the views the course affords, particularly those from atop its larger sand dunes.
While the Seven Mile Beach panorama takes in kunanyi/Mt Wellington, Lewisham, Spectacle Island, and the sparkling expanse of Tiger Head Bay, such vistas were never taken for granted during the planning process.
Goggin can remember when the course was nothing but forest and dense scrub, forcing design teams to navigate the land with topographical maps due to the lack of visibility.
“We actually didn’t know whether the course would see the water or not,” Goggin said, standing on the fairway of Seven Mile Beach’s first hole.
“We would wander along here and there would be 30m-high pine trees, so you couldn’t get any perception of what was on the other side of the dune.
“But when we cleared the trees out, the view was just incredible.
“There is not a hole at Seven Mile Beach that you don’t see the water from.”
Even before the construction process began, Seven Mile Beach was generating hype among golf aficionados, with speculation the course had the potential to be ranked inside the world’s top 100.
Goggin said that although such accolades were never a motivation for course designers, any international attention Seven Mile Beach received would only help secure its long-term viability.
And with financial stability comes employment opportunities, especially for younger Tasmanians.
Goggin said when Seven Mile Beach was up and running – alongside its planned sister course Five Mile Beach – the overall operation would support around 60 full-time equivalent jobs.
But the former underage star who went on to make it big on the world stage – playing on both the PGA and Europeans tours, and reaching a career-high ranking inside the world’s top 50 – is also determined to attract the next generation of Tasmanians to the game.
His ideas for scholarship programs, discounted junior fees, and even a teenage caddie school at Seven Mile Beach are all motivated by the desire to see more young faces on the fairways.
“I have an obvious bias towards the game, but I want to introduce kids to golf because it’s a sport for life, and one that is so social,” he said.
“I wanted to build a course that would inspire me, so hopefully it inspires other people to become interested in golf as well.
“It’s a pretty special site.
“There aren’t many places in the world like this.”
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