Englishman Matthew Smith lives "shacked up" on an island in Bass Strait with about a dozen workmates.
He also helps run a golf course ranked among the best in Australia and the world.
Cape Wickham Golf Links on the northern tip of King Island opened eight years ago, debuting inside Golf Digest's top 25 courses on the planet.
"I was only supposed to come for a 4-6 month stretch," Mr Smith, the course's director of operations, says.
"The second I drove through and saw the views, it was just incredible.
"I'm here three years later. I've probably played this golf course more than anybody."
Cape Wickham's opening was followed a few years later by Ocean Dunes - considered among the country's best public courses - on the west coast, cementing King Island as a golfing Mecca.
"On 16 of our 18 holes you see the water. That's really unique - the raw, rugged coastline," Ocean Dunes Golf Course manager Cameron Jones says.
"It reminds people of Scottish links, where golf was born."
Australian Golf Digest, which ranked Cape Wickham at No.3 in 2022/23, assessed 321 courses against seven criteria including aesthetics, conditioning, character and design variety.
The 18-hole course, which cost $8 million to buy and construct, covers about 120 hectares and is made up of several types of fescue grass, specifically chosen because of the windy conditions.
Mr Smith says Cape Wickham scores heavily on "looks", with nine holes straddling rocky coastline.
However, the drawing card of isolation is also a double-edged sword.
"Being so close to the ocean, a lot of the course gets smashed with salt spray," he says.
"(We're) constantly dealing with broken down equipment (and) only have three greenkeepers on course. We're running it on hardly anything really.
"You're constantly repairing things and you're so remote it takes weeks, months for things to get here.
"King Island is all about being prepared for the worst outcome."
The island, home to about 1600 people, copped a curveball in 2022 when Tasmania's health department advised people not to travel there unnecessarily amid a rise in COVID-19 cases.
Ocean Dunes lost 80 rounds of players "overnight", while Cape Wickham was hit with "loads" of cancellations.
The impact on visitation was so severe, the state government launched a travel incentive scheme, which included the subsidising of flights from Hobart for a period.
Tourism broadly has since come back to life, with Ocean Dunes welcoming a record 7000 players last year.
"The last summer has been a big rebound. Through that we have hit capacity. We're victims of our own success," King Island mayor Marcus Blackie said.
"We've run out of bums on seats getting in and out, airline seats and tourist accommodation. But they're good growing pains to have.
"We're getting back to where we were back in 2019, our previous high-water mark."
This AAP article was made possible with the support of the Meta Australian News Fund and The Walkley Foundation.
