Victoria has the greatest concentration of golf courses of any state in Australia. Areas like the Melbourne Sandbelt, the Mornington and Bellarine peninsulas as well as the Murray River are famous for the quality golf courses they are home to.

There are also emerging golf destinations throughout the state, including what is called the Goldfields region, with Victoria’s largest inland city, Ballarat, lying at its heart. There are several enjoyable courses to be found within 30 minutes’ drive of the historic city, but you don’t have to beat a path out of town to play the best layout the region has to offer.

Ballarat Golf Club dates back to 1895, with humble beginnings as an 11-hole course. However, this crude course lasted only two weeks as it was too short for a match or a single round and too long for a double round. It was reduced to a nine-hole course and modelled on St Andrews in Scotland.

Despite numerous changes to the course in the 115 years that followed – including the construction of an almost completely new course designed by Peter Thomson and Ross Perrett – Ballarat remains Australia’s oldest layout that is still played on part of the original course.

The Thomson and Perrett design was born out of a land deal with a local developer, which saw the exchange of land titles in 2008 and plans tabled to build the new layout on a small parcel of the original course and some adjoining land.