The course & your visit
The Pat: championship golf by the beach
The Pat GC is the golf arm of West Beach Parks on Military Road at West Beach: the 18-hole Patawalonga championship course, the 15-hole Short Course, a TrackMan driving range, a golf academy and a bar and eatery with course views. It is public golf at significant scale, and unusually forthcoming — the venue publishes a hole-by-hole playing guide with a pro tip for all eighteen championship holes.
Sources: The Pat — home · The Pat — Patawalonga Course
The Patawalonga, hole by hole
The published guide sets the tone early: the first is rated the hardest hole, 368 metres from the blues and longer into the wind, with the tip to drive the left side and leave a mid-iron. Water threads the round — right of the third, beside the fourth’s layup zone, right of the fifteenth and seventeenth — and the short holes demand full attention, from the two-tiered second to the breeze-exposed fifth and the soft, quick-checking sixteenth.
The back nine offers the round’s decisions. The tenth is a tricky short par four to attack with driver over a blind bunker or lay up with an iron; the eighteenth is its friendly opposite, a quaint dogleg-right par four where the guide all but promises a closing birdie chance. Centreline and greenside bunkering throughout means the pro tips keep returning to one theme: pick a side off the tee.
Sources: The Pat — Patawalonga Course
The Short Course, growing to eighteen
The Short Course currently plays fifteen holes — ten par threes from 98 to 172 metres and five par fours from 197 to 258 — across 2,500 metres of kikuyu fairways to small, subtly undulating greens. The format is deliberately casual: no bookings, no dress code, open to all at any time, pitched at beginners and at better players honing the short game.
The venue has announced an expansion to a full eighteen, to be renamed The Short Course 18, with construction slated from June to a November opening — a response, it says, to demand for social, time-friendly golf. Check the current layout before visiting, as the build may be underway.
Sources: The Pat — Short Course · The Pat — home
TrackMan range and academy
The driving range runs TrackMan ball-tracking with virtual golf, practice and entertainment modes plus a downloadable app for groups and solo sessions — the venue notes it was among the first to bring the technology to Australia. The Golf Academy’s coaches handle lessons and improvement programmes, and the site also hosts Westward Ho Golf Club and the ParaGolfer program.
Sources: The Pat — TrackMan Range · The Pat — home
Eating and practical detail
The Bar & Eatery serves relaxed dining, barista coffee and local beers and wines overlooking the course, with indoor and outdoor seating and function and event bookings — no round required. Course and range both take online bookings. Open hours run dawn to 6pm in autumn and winter, dawn to 7pm in spring and summer.
Sources: The Pat — Bar & Eatery · The Pat — Short Course
Researched from the published sources linked above.