Golfing in Lake Macquarie City Council
Wrapped around Australia's largest coastal lake, Lake Macquarie has a well-rounded spread of golf, most of it public. Waratah Golf Club at Argenton is the region's oldest: founded in 1901 and first played at Dangar Park in Mayfield, it opened its Lake Macquarie course in 1921 and was the area's only 18-hole layout until 1957. Today it plays as a par-72 community club. Belmont (1952) is a links course set between the lake and the Pacific, its rolling fairways backed by the ocean on many holes and plenty of bunkers in play. Charlestown at Mount Hutton is a bushland parkland 18 for all levels, and Toronto, a Harley Kruse-designed members' club that welcomes visitors, is lush and gently undulating. Sugar Valley at West Wallsend, dating from 1936, is a flat, par-3-heavy nine for sharpening the irons in about an hour.