One of the great pleasures in returning to Sydney at the end of yet another long year reporting on golf around the world is foremost catching up with family and friends .

Of course, it also being summer means there is the opportunity to don the shorts and sun glasses and enjoy a few games of golf including a game on one of the best kept secrets in Sydney –  Long Reef Golf Club.

Long Reef is located about 20 kilometers  from the heart of Australia’s greatest city on the famed northern beaches of Sydney.

First-time visitors to Long Reef Golf Club would look on the course as a links course given it is surrounded by water on two sides.

But clearly remembering the definition of a links course as long ago instilled into me by Gerry Ruddy, and the son of famed Irish-born course designer Pat Ruddy, a links course is that area (or the link) between the sea and the arable land.

So let’s correct any misconception as Long Reef is not a links course.

But what Long Reef may lack in definition it easily makes up as it plays very much like a links course given its location by the ocean and being so open and exposed to the elements.

And much like links ‘gems’, such as Royal Portrush, Portstewart, Ballybunion, Royal Aberdeen and Crail, Long Reef commands stunning views with Palm Beach visible to the north and Manly to the south.

Five-time Open Champion, Peter Thomson labelled the course laid out on the Long Reef headland as – “one of the best sites of any golf course in Sydney”.

History records Long Reef began as a 9-hole course and was expanded to 18 holes in 1927 by Dan Soutar, a Scottish-born professional who captured four Australian PGA Championships between 1905 and 1910.

Soutar’s other designs include other Sydney courses in Concord and Elanora. He also designed the famed ‘Sandbelt’ gem Kingston Heath for which he was paid the princely sum of £25 yet Dr. Alister McKenzie was paid ten times that to design Kingston Heath’s bunkers.

Long Reef was altered significantly after World War II but then remained virtually unchanged until the mid-’90s when Thomson’s design company installed pot bunkers and creative mounding to several holes that helped to toughen the layout and improve the overall golfing experience at Long Reef.

Long Reef offers a great test of golf and a golf course where you should get to use every club in your bag starting from the 477-meter par five first hole, where you must avoid a creek running right across the fairway about the 200-meter mark, to the last where standing on the tee you are reminded of Thomson’s work in adding a number of bunkers you have to thread you way through.

Fortunately, one of the holes untouched by change is the short 315-meter par four, third hole.   It’s a classic dog-leg left but with a blind tee shot to a raised green and where local knowledge is clearly a big benefit.

On reaching the fourth tee the remaining 14 holes at Long Reef are laid out before you on a giant canvas with a mix of lush green fairways, golden sand bunkers and also a little water, and with the water coming well into play at four, five, six and seven.

However after the appetizer of the opening eight holes you tuck right into Long Reef’s main course commencing at the ninth where your back is to the clubhouse and the slightly uphill par five hole leads you right to the heart and joy of Long Reef.

The 10th is a tough uphill par three while the 335-meter par four, the 11th a down hill dog-leg right hole of some 374 meters while the slighly uphill 12th teases you with a great array of bunkering and mounds around the putting surface

Reaching the short 138-meter 13th hole is another one of those joys in playing Long Reef and again a reminder to golf course designers that a par three doesn’t have to measure 200-meters to be challenging.

If there is a signature hole at Long Reef it would have to be the 415-meter downhill par four 16th, and the longest par four on the golf course.

The view from any of the tees is easily worth the green fee looking down as you do over nearby Dee Why Beach.  If you have time and if you are not holding up the group behind then a short walk from the 16th tee to the top of headland just meters behind you is a must.

The 17th hole is 15 meters shorter than 16 but a whole lot harder with the Pacific Ocean to the left and a whole lot of other trouble to the right but depending on the conditions at the time a good drive and an equally decent fairway wood or long iron should get you home in two.

That then leaves the last and as I mentioned earlier it’s a tee shot where you need to find the middle of the fairway or face a Peter Thomson experience at getting yourself out of one of his Open Championship like bunkers.

The great aspect about Long Reef is not only its stunning location and being able to ‘open your shoulders’ unlike so many courses in Sydney but the superb year round condition of this A-Grade course.  The lush kikuyu fairways are like carpet and so good that you could take a full-blooded iron shot and not leave a mark.

There is some great golf courses in Sydney, as evident by the Australian Open host foursome of Royal Sydney, The Australian, The Lakes and New South Wales but for a golfing experience on a magnificently maintained course along with unparalleled views of many of Sydney’s stunning beaches Long Reef is never short on reward.

* Now enjoy a hole-by-hole tour of Long Reef Golf Club.