By DPA
Sydney : Australia has announced government funding for a round of golf with a difference: 18 holes dotted across 1,365 km of the Nullarbor desert between Perth and Adelaide.
The Nullarbor Links is the brainchild of hotel proprietor Bob Bongiorno and Eyre Highway Operators Association secretary Alf Caputo and is intended to encourage the 250,000 motorists who drive the highway each year to tarry awhile rather than blasting through in two days.
“It’ll be west Australia’s hugest international icon,” Caputo said. “The Japanese are prepared to play golf on a rooftop, that’s how keen they are. Can you imagine? They’ll be flocking in hordes to get over here and play this.”
In keeping with the countryside, the Nullarbor Links is flat and sandy rather than undulating and grassy. In fact, there isn’t any grass at all. The greens are actually black because they consist of sand bedded down with oil.
“We want people to have fun while they’re travelling and also have a better understanding of the amazing place they are travelling through,” Bongiorno said when the idea was floated three years ago.
The project is estimated at 800,000 Australian dollars ($656,000) of which the federal government is funding 331,000 Australian dollars.
The coastal road linking Perth and Adelaide is among the world’s straightest and most monotonous.
In 2008, when all the holes are playable, travellers will be able to skip out of their vehicles every couple of hours to smack a ball, have a snack at the roadhouse that maintains it, and then drive on to the next one.
Four holes have already been completed.