The Nullarbor Links: Where Golf Meets the Infinite Outback

About 15,600 kilometers from St Andrews and roughly 17,000 kilometers from Mar-a-Lago, there exists a golf course that makes both look positively cramped. The Nullarbor Links stretches 1,365 kilometers across some of the most ancient, unforgiving terrain on Earth, and I cannot stop thinking about it.

A Course Unlike Any Other

The premise sounds almost absurd when you first hear it: an 18-hole, par-72 course that begins in Ceduna, South Australia, crosses the flat limestone bedrock of the Nullarbor Plain, and finishes in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. That's 850 miles of outback between your first tee shot and your final putt. The driving between holes isn't measured in golf cart minutes—it's measured in hours behind the wheel.

But here's what captivates me: this isn't some gimmick. The annual Chasing the Sun tournament, organized by Graeme and Bea Wilmot, takes 10 days to complete and has attracted players from Germany, Vietnam, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. It wrapped up just this past Saturday, with 25 participants scrapping their way across dirt fairways and worn astroturf greens.

The Hazards Here Have Teeth

Forget bunkers and water features. On the Nullarbor Links, the course hazards include snakes, spiders, wombats, dingoes, and camels. You read that correctly—camels. The fairways aren't manicured strips of emerald Kentucky bluegrass; they're wild outback, complete with shedding gum trees and the occasional airstrip crossing.

"Anything between the tee-off and the green is wild outback," Bea Wilmot explains. "There are lots of snakes, lizards, spiders, wombats, dingoes, camels."

The greens vary wildly too. You'll putt on sand in Ceduna and manicured lawns in Kalgoorlie, but between those endpoints? Whatever the outback provides.

From Golf Widow to Golf Tragic

What strikes me most about the Nullarbor Links is its power to convert the skeptical. Bea Wilmot's story resonates with anyone who's ever been dragged along on a partner's passion project. She "reluctantly" joined Graeme on her first tournament in 2017.

"He was the golf fanatic and I was the golf widow," she says. "Over the 10 days I went from golf widow to golf tragic. By the time we got home, I'd ordered clubs and joined the local golf club."

There's something profound in that transformation. Ten days crossing ancient desert, sleeping in roadhouses (or camping under the vast Southern Hemisphere sky, as some participants chose), playing holes that are named rather than numbered because you can tackle the course in either direction. It changes how you think about the game.

The Characters of the Course

The recent tournament produced its share of memorable moments. Paul Windle took home the men's net winner trophy and, delightfully, the Sharpest Dresser award. Then there's Alan, who first drove across the Nullarbor Plain in 1974 with a mate in a beat-up Holden HR ute when the road was still unsealed. He was moving from Nowra in New South Wales to Perth for work back then. Now he's returned with a set of clubs and claimed the "hackers" trophy.

The tournament includes a hole-in-one competition and putting challenges between the big drives—small competitions within the larger odyssey that keep spirits high across the long, flat kilometers.

Why This Matters

I've played courses on six continents, walked fairways designed by legends, and stood on tees with views that stopped my breath. But the Nullarbor Links represents something different—golf stripped to its essence and stretched across a landscape that reminds you just how small human endeavors can be.

This isn't about perfect lies or reading subtle breaks. It's about choosing to chase a small white ball across 1,365 kilometers of ancient earth, accepting whatever hazards—venomous or otherwise—present themselves, and finding community with fellow travelers who understand that sometimes the journey is the point.

The Takeaway

The Nullarbor Links won't appear on any traditional "best courses" ranking. It doesn't have a clubhouse dress code or a storied history of major championships. What it has is something rarer: the audacity to reimagine what golf can be. For those willing to make the pilgrimage, it offers not just 18 holes but a week-long meditation on landscape, persistence, and why we play this maddening game in the first place. The fairways may be rough and the dog-legs might actually be dingoes, but that's precisely the point.