Joondalup Resort, review: Above par for all the family

With a pool as centrepiece, spacious suites and three challenging nines, the golf course resort comes age, writes Mal Chenu.

IT'S hot. Damned hot. Too hot for the kangaroo to move from under the tree where it is sheltering, in the firing line for what should be my approach shot to the green. It looks at me lazily, wondering why I couldn't just keep my tee shot on the fairway like I'm supposed to. Recalcitrant wildlife aside, the Joondalup track is simply superb, a lovely golf course at the height of its powers. With impeccably maintained fairways and billiard-table greens despite the Perth drought, the Robert Trent Jones jnr-designed layout is a genuine challenge and a lot of fun.

Three accurately named nines are offered - the Dunes, Lakes and Quarry - and each has an intriguing personality, the views as varied as the design. On one hole you might be lining up a blind chip over a sheer rock face and on another belting a drive into the teeth of a howling sea breeze on to an undulating links-style fairway. Whichever courses you choose, be sure to hire a cart, especially on hot days.

Half an hour north of the city centre, Joondalup Resort is a unique style of accommodation in the suburban sprawl that characterises Perth and is a rare offering at this end of the capital. It was a long, dry, hot summer in the west, equal to its hottest on record, which was just last year. Along with the mining tax and perennial daylight-saving controversies, the climate-change debate is a hot topic around here in more ways than one. The attitudes are usually strident one way or the other with the suffixes - alarmist and denier - readily invoked. But if you like sunshine, this is the place: last summer Perth averaged 32 degrees and 11 hours of sunlight, while Sydney averaged 27 degrees and seven hours.

My wife used to be a golf course resort denier. Not convinced by the scientific evidence that I made up proving that if I was happy then the rest of the tribe would be, too, she was a Joondalup Resort sceptic. Until she saw the pool. Sparkling away in the Perth sunshine, the pool is the centrepiece of the resort and it's no problem spending a day relaxing here. Never has anything looked more inviting than that pool after my round of swelter-golf. Drinks waiters prowl the area and cabanas and deck chairs line the pool while a large spa bubbles away in the corner.

You might not normally consider golf resorts to be welcoming of children but here they are made to feel at home, even fussed over.

There are kids everywhere and even the golf pro seems happy to allow small putters on the practice green, although the loud "woo hoo" when the ball finally finds its way into the cup after half a dozen putts is frowned upon. Four room styles are available at the resort and with two kids in tow we choose a ground-floor suite with a small courtyard spilling out on to a lovely grassed area near the pool.

There's plenty of room for small ones to run around or practise their game with the plastic clubs grandma gave them for Christmas.

In the mid-distance sits a small lake with an ornate fountain and plenty of ducks to chase.