The good news for Gil Hanse Golf Course Design continues could not have been more timely with confirmation, and with the Olympic Games well under way, that the company has won the right to redesign the famed Royal Sydney Club along the foreshore of Sydney Harbour.

And if you want to see a sample of his work, well, it was Hanse that designed the course where the Olympic golf will be played in Rio.

Now Royal Sydney Golf Club, which will host this year’s Australian Open, has signed Hanse to give the course a ‘facelift’ the club feels is needed to keep the course’s high rating when it comes to Australia’s best.

What a stunning location – Royal Sydney Golf Club laid out along the shores of Sydney Harbour and now to get a Gil Hanse redesign facelift.

And Hanse comes with some stunning credentials starting with his first 18-hole project in designing the Craighead Links course at Crail on the east coast of Scotland and just a short distance from St. Andrews that led to the quietly-spoken American offered the job of designing Castle Stuart along the shores of the Moray Firth just to the east of Inverness that recently hosted the Scottish Open and won by Sweden’s Alex Noren.

As well, Hanse was signed by US Presidential candidate Donald Trump some years back to redesign Trump Doral in suburban Miami.

Hanse has also redesigned such iconic layouts like Merion, Winged Foot and the South Carolina gem Palmetto, located just 20 minutes from Augusta National.

None of the changes will take place until Royal Sydney hosts Australia’s No 1 tournament from November 17-20 with much of the improvements expected to take place in the first half of 2017.

While Hanse will struggle to improve the Rose Bay layout’s famous finishing hole, the dogleg par-four 18th, there is no question some of the other holes have lost some of their lustre over the years.

Many have also suggested how to improve the short par-four first, driveable for the biggest hitters, but nonetheless, still regarded by many as one of the more memorable holes on the layout.

While ‘RS’ has slipped in the rankings of Australia’s best layouts in recent years, Hanse’s aim will be to get it back into the top echelon of courses, despite some startling opposition from all corners of Australia and even remote King Island in more recent years.

American designers are obviously the flavour of the month in Australia at the moment: Tom Doak was also recently appointed to oversee improvements to another of Sydney’s highest-profile course, Concord, which has also hosted many major Australian events over the years