There’s only one thing better than the weekend and that’s a long weekend... or two. In the second part of this limited series, we recommend more three-day golfing adventures with plenty of highlights on and off the course.
MELBOURNE SANDBELT, VICTORIA
Some might vigorously argue that the Melbourne Sandbelt is the finest destination in the world to play golf.
It’s hard to argue with the fact there are world class golf courses seemingly around every corner across Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs. And planning a golf weekend in the Sandbelt is one full of tough choices … what courses do you leave out?
Here’s two tips for you – get on where you can, you won’t be disappointed, and book well in advance.
If you have never played in the Sandbelt before, you may as well aim high and play the best of the best for your maiden experience. Playing a round at Royal Melbourne (on either its West or East Course), Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Clubs – which are all within close proximity of each other – on consecutive days might just prove to be the best three days of your golfing life.
The finest arena we have in Australia is Royal Melbourne’s West Course. It set the benchmark for golf course design in this country when it opened for play in 1931 and, to this day, it still inspires the modern course designers to try and emulate the strength of its simple strategies and bold bunkering into their own creations.
The West course was created by the best design team ever assembled in this country. The Royal Melbourne club paid Scottish architect Dr Alister MacKenzie 1,000 guineas to travel to Australia in 1926 and suggest major changes to their existing course at Black Rock.
MacKenzie was joined on site at Royal Melbourne by Alex Russell – a member of the club and a former Australian Open champion, who was well read on MacKenzie’s design principles. Completing the team was Mick Morcom, Royal Melbourne’s head greenkeeper. Morcom, who was also well read on course architecture, was described by MacKenzie as the best greenkeeper he had ever encountered.
Having finished his design work on paper, MacKenzie left Melbourne having only seen the par-3 5th hole completed. The Scot had the utmost confidence that Russell and Morcom would be
able to correctly interpret his notes and sketches. The fact that Royal Melbourne’s West course remains entrenched among the top-10 courses in the world suggests Russell and Morcom did a brilliant job.
Kingston Heath is well-established among the best courses in Australia and is Melbourne’s second highest ranked course in the World’s Top-100.
The ‘Heath’, which will host the Presidents Cup in 2028, has been squeezed into a small area and across relatively flat terrain, yet its design is so impressive despite covering almost half the amount of land of most modern layouts.
Sydney-based professional and course designer Dan Soutar routed the original layout in 1925 and created the entire course starting from the outstanding 130-metre par-3 10th hole that lies right at the heart of the property. The genius of Soutar’s routing is that seven other holes surround this diminutive offering, a factor which has undoubtedly led Kingston Heath to become a popular tournament venue for spectators.
The creativity and strength of Soutar’s routing in such a confined space is only outdone by the bunkering, which was added to the layout by Dr Alister MacKenzie and masterfully constructed by Mick Morcom, the course superintendent who brought MacKenzie’s Royal Melbourne sketches and masterplan to life.
MacKenzie thought Soutar’s layout, although long for the time at 6,200 metres, was excellent but suggested one important change – that the then blind par-4 15th be turned into an uphill par-3 with bunkers covering 75 percent of the route to the green. MacKenzie’s addition is today regarded as one of the finest, if not the finest, one-shot holes in Australia.
Victoria Golf Club is acclaimed worldwide as a fantastic shot-makers course where strategy always wins out over brute strength.
Club members William Meader and Oscar Damman created the course back in 1927 but the bunkering plan was undertaken by a third party – one Dr Alister MacKenzie, who was working on the design of Royal Melbourne’s West course across the road when he was asked to cast his eyes over the Victoria layout. Impressed by what he saw he recommended a few hole changes and drafted a plan for the bunkering.
An aerial photograph of the layout taken in 1934 shows the magnificence of MacKenzie’s bunkering work, which sadly became obscured or lost over the decades because of overplanting, the extensive spread of ti-tree and growth of huge Cypress pines.
Two redesigns later, and guided by that aerial photograph, Victoria is gaining wide acclaim for its visual appeal, strategic design, and impeccable conditioning.
The latest redesign a handful of years ago also saw the greens converted to Pure Distinction bentgrass, which have thrived and Victoria’s putting surfaces are now some of the country’s best.
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
LOCATION: Melbourne south-eastern suburbs, Victoria.
HOW TO GET THERE: Cheltenham, which lies in the heart of these three courses, is a 40-minute drive from the Melbourne CBD via the Nepean Highway or Monash Freeway
GREEN FEES: On application. Interstate members of golf clubs are welcome to play depending on availability.
WHERE TO STAY: Did you know you can stay on the course at Victoria Golf Club in the heritage-listed clubhouse? Each of the elegant, well-appointed rooms has ensuite facilities, while house guests enjoy the same playing rights, during their stay, as members.
The clubhouse has 12 comfortably appointed rooms, each with views of the grounds and the course. Stay and play packages are available.
WHERE TO EAT/DRINK: Good coffee can sometimes be hard to find but there is no shortage of excellent cafes in Melbourne, even spread throughout the suburbs. Bayside suburbs like Sandringham and Black Rock, which are just a short drive from the likes of Royal Melbourne and Victoria, have a host of quality cafes.
In Sandringham, try the Black Squirrel café on Bay Rd for great coffee and the ‘Big Squirrel’ breakfast, or around the corner in Station St there is Limoncello, which has become a Sandringham favourite over the past two decades. The coffee is always great here, as is the porridge.
WHILE YOU’RE THERE: You’re in the world-famous Melbourne Sandbelt…the best things to do are all golf related. If you manage to secure a tee time at Kingston Heath, be sure to allow two hours to play the club’s new Furrows short course.
The Furrows is a nine-hole par-3 layout designed by OCM Golf (Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead) on land that was used as market garden for nearly 100 years. The course has been widely acclaimed for its simple but visually striking design and for how much fun it is to play.
WEBSITES: www.royalmelbourne.com.au ; www.kingstonheath.melbourne ; www.victoriagolf.com.au
RELATED: THE GREAT GOLF WEEKEND GUIDE PART I
BELLARINE PENINSULA, VICTORIA
After featuring courses from the northern part of the Peninsula last month, it’s time to look at what the oceanside of the Bellarine has to offer … and surprise, surprise, it oozes class.
The incredible popularity of the VicOpen since it made its home at Thirteenth Beach Golf Links a decade ago has elevated the Bellarine as a ‘must visit’ golfing destination for golfers across the country.
Today, there is such a wealth of courses on the Bellarine that hard choices must be made when planning your golf weekend. On the other hand, it’s always good to have choices.
The choice we’re recommending here for a single weekend visit is to play the three highest ranked courses in the area – Thirteenth Beach’s Beach Course, the neighbouring Barwon Heads Golf Club and the relatively new, Lonsdale Links.
Thirteenth Beach was the vision of entrepreneur Duncan Andrews, who fell in love with the coastal strip of sand dunes at first glance. Having already developed The Dunes Links –on the Mornington Peninsula – Andrews commissioned the design craftsman behind that layout, Tony Cashmore, to create a course that would incorporate as much of the rugged dune landscape as possible.
While the opening four holes cover relatively flat land, the excitement builds on the 5th tee as the layout begins its journey across some of the best natural terrain for golf in Victoria.
Cashmore, following a minimalist philosophy in creating the Beach course, located some fabulous tee and green sites among the dunes, which have, in turn, produced some memorable holes. The trio of holes, starting from the par-4 5th, is the highlight of the front nine while the back nine includes two world-class par-3s in the 12th and 16th holes.
The Beach Course is a terrific layout, perhaps only surpassed in the region by one other course, the neighbouring Barwon Heads layout.
Firm fairways and greens often made harder with their exposure to plenty of wind, the presence of the ocean within earshot and holes seemingly laid randomly across a relatively treeless but corrugated dunescape – Barwon Heads’ opening holes offer this genuine links experience.
But that’s where it ends as many would Barwon Heads is more reminiscent of courses found in the Melbourne Sandbelt. In truth it really is only the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th holes that really fit the links course billing. These holes, across a narrow road from the historical clubhouse, are brilliant, while the holes from the 7th (alongside the clubhouse) to the 18th are flanked by sometimes dense clumps of ti-tree and the occasional Cypress Pine.
Barwon Heads was designed in 1920 by Victor East, the then professional at Royal Melbourne. The link to Melbourne’s famous golfing Sandbelt doesn’t stop there. When it came time to grass the fairways during construction, East believed the native grasses would be unsuitable, so it was arranged for couch to be brought from Sandringham, in the heart of the Sandbelt.
Architects Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford have overseen subtle changes to the design in recent times as part of an ongoing development plan for the course. This has included bunker renovation and scrub clearing to further enhance the playability and visual appeal of the layout.
Barwon Heads is the kind of course you enjoy more and more with every round you play as you begin to understand its nuances and realise how good the strategy of the design really is.
Lonsdale Links is the latest addition to the list of ‘must-play’ layouts in the area and boy, does it hold its own against the heavy hitters of the Bellarine.
Lonsdale Golf Club reopened as Lonsdale Links in late 2019 following an extensive redevelopment by the OCM Golf design team (Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking & Ashley Mead). Within months it was ranked No.20 in the nation and debuted at No.8 in Golf Australia’s Top-100 Public Access Courses list in 2021.
The most intriguing aspect of the massive redesign was the incorporation of template holes, having drawn inspiration from their use by famed American course architects Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor, during the Golden Age of Course Design in the 1920s.
Lonsdale Links and its template holes have been dictated to by the land and are merely inspired by Macdonald’s work.
The opening hole, for instance, has been dubbed “Alps” and pays homage to the 3rd at the National Golf Links of America, which, in turn, was crafted from the 17th at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Measuring 305 metres from the tips and offering sweeping views over Lake Victoria, players are encouraged to take on the dune off the tee to create an easier approach into the first of the layout’s massive, square-cut greens.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to play the Old Course at St Andrews – or even if you have for that matter – you’re bound to enjoy the final template hole at Lonsdale Links. The 240-metre 16th has taken aspects of the famous “Road Hole” to become, in my opinion, one of the better short par-4s on the Bellarine Peninsula. The green is certainly reachable for most players, provided your tee shot is accurate and has safely carried the salt marsh. But anything left is likely to find the Moonahs or the wrong side of the post-and-rail out-of-bounds fence, which brackets the putting surface. The main attraction, however, is the deep bunker at the front of the green that emulates one of the world’s most recognisable sandy hazards.
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
LOCATION: Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria.
HOW TO GET THERE: Geelong, at the western edge of the Bellarine Peninsula, is a 70-minute drive southwest of Melbourne’s CBD.
GREEN FEES: Thirteenth Beach – $115 (18 holes, weekday), $135 (weekend); Barwon Heads GC – $175 (18 holes, weekday), $225 (weekend); Lonsdale Links – $85 (18 holes, weekday, shoulder season), $95 (weekend), $110 (18 holes, weekday, peak season), $120 (weekend).
WHERE TO STAY: You can stay and play at Thirteenth Beach Golf Links while staying at 13th Beach Golf Lodges. All stay and play packages include breakfast in the clubhouse restaurant along with your 18-hole round. Single and twin share options are available.
If you want to experience one of the great clubhouses in Australia, try to book a night or two at Barwon Heads Golf Club (pictured below). Golfers have been staying in the iconic clubhouse since 1924.
There are 19 ensuite rooms available in single, twin or double bedding configuration and a variety of packages available that incorporate your stay with golf, meetings, dining and entertainment. Rooms are classified either ‘Standard’ or ‘Balcony’, the latter sharing access to a balcony that overlooks the course and the Barwon Coast.
WHERE TO EAT/DRINK: When in Barwon Heads with an appetite for good seafood, you have two really good options. For those seeking a five-star experience there is At The Heads on Barwon Heads Pier, where there is great seafood (try the linguine) and a superb view to match. If you’re looking for something a little more casual, grab some fish and chips, and perhaps some calamari rings, from the old school Barwon Heads fish and chips shop and grab a spot overlooking the Barwon River.
WHILE YOU’RE THERE: Take a scenic flight along The Great Ocean Rd and view the 12 Apostles. Adventure Flight Co. operates flights to and from Barwon Heads Airport.
WEBSITES: www.13thbeachgolf.com ; www.barwonheads.golf ; www.lonsdalelinks.com.au
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