After a long construction process and a couple of soft openings, all 18 holes at 7 Mile Beach in Tasmania (10 miles east of the capital city, Hobart) are finally open. As readers may know, the course was designed by Mike Clayton and Mike DeVries of Clayton, DeVries and Pont (CDP), and is owned and was developed by Hobart native Mat Goggin, a former member of the Australasian/European/PGA Tours and a five-time winner on the Korn Ferry (then Nationwide) Tour.
We spoke with Mike DeVries to get the story on what must have been a dream job.
Surely no American, not even Bill Coore or Tom Doak (who designed courses at Barnbougle on Tasmania’s north coast), has altered the Tasmanian coastline as much as you, having also co-designed and built Cape Wickham on King Island off the mainland. And what a way to do it! How do you feel about that?
Mike DeVries: Well, thanks for that compliment. I love Tassie and really think it has the best land for golf I’ve seen anywhere. And it has the ideal climate for fescue; you can play almost any day of the year; the air and water are clean; the people are great; and the food and drink are really good. I’ve been very fortunate to have had the opportunities to do two great links courses there and hope to have more chances.
You’ve done a lot of very fine work throughout your career, but might 7 Mile Beach be the course you’re most proud of?
MD: I love all the projects I’ve been fortunate to be a part of, but this was certainly special because of the site, and it was the first thing Clayts (Mike Clayton) and I did together. And Mat (Goggin) showed incredible perseverance. It is an amazing place that I will continue to visit and enjoy as long as I can.
What was the travel like? Did you live in Tasmania while building the course or did you return to the U.S. much?
MD: My wife, Annie, and I arrived in Tassie in mid-December, 2021, and I had six-month intervals there for 18 months. After that, I had some longer stints there.
Do you remember your very first reaction when seeing the site for 7 Mile Beach? Were you itching to get started?
MD: Oh, yeah. The site was diverse and covered in Radiata pine trees, a non-native noxious weed in Australia. We could envision the land with the topo we had and getting around through trails. But it was a dream site and so close to Hobart’s airport and downtown Hobart, not remote like other links courses. Once the trees were cut during early Covid and we could see the whole site in late 2021, we made changes and could really see the potential so much better.
Were other firms in the picture or was CDP the front-runner from the start?
MD: Clayts had a relationship with Mat from the beginning. It was a collaboration that was meant to be. I came to the event very late, but I couldn’t be happier with the result.
Do you remember if certain holes revealed themselves immediately or did you have to work hard at identifying them?
MD: Certain holes just happen and others take time, no matter the project. The 14th green was just sitting there but had a six-foot mound in the middle of it. It only took me a morning to fashion the green into shape. Other holes we needed to think about and massage a little before they felt right. The good thing is we had time to do all that, and our process of noodling things allowed those tougher ones to evolve into great holes.
Were changes (major or minor) being made late into the process?
MD: Yes, continuous evolution of the design as we worked through the site. We had a small crew that put in all the irrigation and seeded everything (a big shout-out to Anthony “Tooey” Toogood and the crew for all the hard work they put in to make this happen), so the process was not always fast but that gave us time to fix the hard spots and get them just right. Tassie is a small market and getting equipment and materials (irrigation, etc.) doesn’t come as easy as places in the more populous United States or big cities of Melbourne and Sydney. Water is clean but getting it in volume is challenging at times due to the Hobart region being a very dry environment.
What are some great memories/anecdotes from the last four years?
MD: The initial trip down to see this great site I’d heard so much about when I was building Cape Wickham. The first two weeks here were amazing. We found the routing and spent all day on site. I got to know Mat better and learned what he was hoping to do—build a Tasmanian golf complex that was not only worthy of traveling thousands of miles to play, but also somewhere kids could experience the game and develop golf and life skills. That feeling at the end of the initial visit and not quite knowing what was going to happen to the world four days after I got back home (because of Covid), was almost comical. I remember saying I would be back in a few months when this “thing” blew over. We were just out in the field doing our thing and not paying attention to the world news. But it was almost two years before I got back. There are so many other stories… where would I stop? That’s a long podcast.
Why did the course take a relatively long time to build?
MD: Covid was a big part of it with all its complexity on supply chains and other things. We had a small crew. There was a lack of water at times. There were bureaucratic delays because of working in multiple jurisdictions, and so on. But I’d do it all over again.
I’m guessing that, with the site, who you worked with, and the client, creating this course was about as good as golf architecture gets.
MD: Absolutely. Mat is an incredibly sharp visionary who has had the patience and fortitude to wade through so many diversions to get 7 Mile Beach to this point. And he was so supportive of Clayts and me. He was certainly involved and provided insights that other owners weren’t really able to do, but he also listened and let us do our thing. Clayts is the ultimate partner and gave me feedback on every aspect of the project while letting me go free to do my thing on a dozer. That all makes for what we hope is an endlessly fun and interesting course.
