But nobody is better credentialed than the local lad, Lukas Michel.

In fact, if you were building a list of attributes to take on the famous composite course across four rounds of stroke play, 30-year-old Michel would tick most of them.

Experience in wind? Michel grew up playing golf at Perth’s Lake Karrinyup and spent a year playing golf in Scotland when an exchange student at the University of St Andrews.

Recent form in wind? He won the Portsea Open and Port Phillip Open, and had top-10s in the Australian Men’s Amateur Championship (at St.Michaels and NSW) and the Australian Master of the Amateurs (at, ahem, Royal Melbourne).

Help? On the bag he’ll have fellow Metropolitan member Mike Clayton, the renowned golf course architect and Golf Australia magazine architecture editor who appreciates RM’s subtleties like the muse of Alister MacKenzie he is.

Big event experience? Michel won the 2019 U.S Mid Amateur in Colorado and earned a spot at Augusta National in the Masters of 2020, the one that happened in November.

Lukas Michel during Round 1 of the 2020 Masters at Augusta National. PHOTO: Getty Images

And, perhaps most importantly of all, local knowledge? Michel’s been a member of nearby Metro for over a decade and has played Royal Melbourne, by conservative estimate, more than 100 times. He’s also caddied at RM about 100 times.

“I’ve got a pretty intimate knowledge of the golf course, probably more than anyone in the field,” Michel says. “There's a couple other Victorians (Max Charles from Kingston Heath, Jasper Stubbs from Peninsula-Kingswood) but none of them has played as much as I have.

“It’s definitely a massive advantage around here, knowing the course, knowing every slope. And not just when you're putting but on approach to the green.”

Golf Australia magazine spent three hours watching several groups at a variety of holes in Wednesday’s practice round and left with the impression that there could be carnage at the 13th annual championship run by Augusta National and the R&A.

And that’s even with relatively ‘soft’ conditions following Wednesday’s rain and forecast light winds for Thursday and Friday.

Australia's Jack Buchanan hits from the deep rough during a practice round at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. PHOTO: AAC.

Because, unless they are very fast learners, some very good golfers could ratchet up some rather high scores if they keep going at flags on the fly when Royal Melbourne requires you to sneak up on them.

Several times this reporter witnessed approach shots, anything from 150 metres to 30m in, landing near or adjacent the flag and scuttling well past, leaving either long downhill putts or skilful chips from basins of tight fescue.

Michel says he and Clayton are not focused on the pin.

“We haven’t even looked at a range finder for the pin. We’re using sprinkler heads to the front to work out where the ball’s landing. You can use your eye for a lot of things, too,” Michel says.

"Clayts is a little bit more focused on using the ground than I am - and I use the ground more than most golfers.

“He’s putting longer clubs in my hand and telling me to hit it softer, let the slope take it."

Michel adds that the "first bounce is always significant”.

“A guy in our group, we were on the fifth hole on the West Course, and he’s hit 8-iron right at it, it looked perfect, all over the pin. And it hit the ground and bounced the height of the pin and then just carried on 40 feet past the hole.

"You’ve really got to think about where you're landing it and how it's going to react once it hits the ground.”

Runner-up in 2022, Bo Jin of China practices at Royal Melbourne. PHOTO: AAC.

This iteration of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship is Michel’s goal and grand final. Unlike Guan and several others at this year’s tournament, Michel has no imperative to turn professional. He’d dreamed about it as a kid and thought about it in his mid-20s, and gave himself a few years to have a crack.

Ultimately, though, a career in golf course design and the enjoyment of ‘playing’ competitive golf trumped the pressure and stress of competing for a living. When he learned that the ‘Asian Am’ was at RM, he worked towards putting the Australia polo shirt on again.

Michel was 13 when he first became fascinated with golf course architecture while watching Clayton and crew redesign Lake Karrinyup.

It grew into a job with Clayton’s golf architecture firm and today sees Michel, who has an engineering degree, piloting a bulldozer and helping shape the highly-anticipated 7 Mile Beach in Hobart.

Clayton has no mantra for keeping cool under pressure, according to Michel.

“We just walk around chatting about golf course design,” Michel says with a smile.

“Otherwise, he’s on Twitter, posting picture of holes that aren’t holes.”