Stubbs is the fourth Aussie winner of the championship over the last 10 years.
It’s a 22-hour flight from Melbourne, Australia to Augusta, Georgia. Jasper Stubbs will be making the trip next April after his win on Sunday.
The 21-year-old Aussie came from behind to force a playoff at 1 over and ultimately win the 2023 Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at the famed Royal Melbourne to punch his ticket to the 2024 Masters as well as the Open Championship at Royal Troon next year. He’s also earned a place in next summer’s Amateur Championship at Ballyliffin in Ireland.
Stubbs, who lives just two miles from Royal Melbourne, beat Wenyi Ding, the 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur champion, and Sampson Zheng in two extra holes after he began the round six shots behind Zheng. He’s now the fourth Australian winner of the championship, joining Antonio Murdaca (2014), Curtis Luck (2016) and Harrison Crowe (2022).
Chuan-Tai Lin finished T-4 alongside Max Charles at 2 over, with Kazuma Kobori in sixth at 4 over. Anh Minh Nguyen and Marcus Lim finished T-7 at 6 over. Jeffrey Guan (7 over) and Billy Dowling (8 over) round out the top 10.
This year’s field featured 120 male amateurs from 37 Asian-Pacific nations. The championship was created in 2009 by the Masters, R&A and Asia-Pacific Golf Confederation to further develop amateur golf throughout the region.
Here are 8 must-do activities when visiting Melbourne.
If Australia wasn’t a bucket list destination for you, you may change your mind after hearing about kangaroos hopping down rolling fairways and the plethora of activities to do.
Many people dread the thought of long plane rides, but the views, excursions and wildlife make it more than worth it. The plane ride is a good opportunity to catch up on sleep in preparation for a hefty time change.
Golfweek took a trip to Melbourne to play extravagant golf and explore the city. While the Aussie accent didn’t stick, the memories and experiences will last a lifetime.
In this video, Golfweek takes on members of the Royal Melbourne over 9 holes at the East Course.
Averee Dovsek, Jason Lusk and Gary Lisbon had a match planned against an Aussie side led by Royal Melbourne members Darcy Brereton, a professional who competes on the Handa PGA Tour of Australasia and Henry Peters, Owner of Under The Card. We won’t go into the details – the lopsided match turned out as anyone might expect when a tour pro is involved. But those results didn’t matter, because this was Royal Melbourne.
We played the East Course this day, the somewhat underappreciated sister course of the world-famous West Course. The East checks in at No. 11 on the Golfweek’s Best list of top courses in Australia and New Zealand, and six of its holes are used alongside 12 from the West to create Royal Melbourne’s Composite Course that is played in many top-tier competitions, including 16 Australian Opens and three Presidents Cups.
It was a blast, even as our American team was blasted in the nine-hole match. The course doesn’t return to the clubhouse at the turn, so we kept swinging, unwilling to miss any of this layout. As is often the case, the top-ranked course at any facility receives almost all the adulation in the press and on TV. But the East at Royal Melbourne is not to be missed, not a single shot of it.
Kangaroos, koalas and golf: A trip to Melbourne and Victoria in Australia is even better than you can imagine.
I had the typical American checklist of expectations as I boarded the massive Qantas A380 en route to Australia: koala bears, kangaroos, surf breaks and cool accents.
I was headed to Melbourne in the state of Victoria on the country’s southern coast, so I was out of luck when it came to crocs – the fierce biters that live far to the north, not the shoes worn by several jammie-clad passengers on my overnight flight. But there would be plenty of nature on tap during Golfweek‘s visit to the second largest city in Oz and its surrounds.
I also had plenty of expectations for Victoria’s golf just south of Melbourne. The Sandbelt region is famous among fans of course architecture, for good reason. Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Victoria Golf Club and a handful of others pepper the lists of best classic courses around the world, including those compiled by Golfweek’s Best ranking program.
I knew this late-April trip to Australia would be full of big bounces, putts from off the greens, beautiful bunkers and some of the most intoxicating greens in the game. The inland equivalent of links golf would be a fair description, with firm and fast sand-based layouts that force a player to think instead of just fire away at a distant flagstick. In other words, my favorite kind of golf.
St. Andrews Beach Golf Course on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia (Courtesy of Visit Victoria/Gary Lisbon).
My hopes, based on years of reading and studying photography and watching elite international events broadcast from Australia, were high. Scotland, Ireland, England, even a handful of U.S. resorts that successfully mimic the best of links golf – this is the style of play I wanted to experience in Victoria.
With expectations so impossibly high, I was gobsmacked when Australia surpassed all of them. Every box was ticked. Simply put, Victoria serves up the best kind of golf at dozens of courses, nine of which I sampled.
The terrain, the textures, the turf – it all rolled into a level of golfing perfection on frequent repeat. I was on the ground nine full days, playing golf for six of them, and it wasn’t nearly enough time to take it all in. But the courses I did play in mostly sunny conditions and ideal autumn breezes – remember, spring in the northern hemisphere is fall to those south of the equator – ignited a desire to return. The flight is long, that much is true. But the list of courses I want to replay or tackle for a first time is even longer.
Much of this is credited to one man who put the Sandbelt on golf’s map in a big way. Alister MacKenzie – a Scot famed in America for his later course designs at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia and Cypress Point in California, among others – visited Victoria in 1926 and laid out the West Course at Royal Melbourne, which ranks among the top 10 in the world on most critics’ lists of courses. He also lent his services to several other clubs in the region, be that rebunkering an existing course or suggesting changes to putting surfaces. MacKenzie’s fingerprints are almost everywhere in the sand.
The par-3 fifth hole at Royal Melbourne’s West Course in Victoria, Australia (Jason Lusk/Golfweek).
Golf already existed around Melbourne, but it was Royal Melbourne’s West Course that proved elite golf could flourish in the Sandbelt. Other prominent designers have followed in MacKenzie’s footsteps, and in the nearly 100 years since his visit, the region has become a mecca for international golf architecture aficionados who heed the call, walk down a jetway in some faraway land and jet off to Melbourne to discover what all the fuss is about. Count this region alongside the United Kingdom and Ireland as must-sees for anybody who truly loves great golf courses.
I was in Victoria with a film crew and Golfweek contributor Averee Dovsek, a former college golfer and now a long-drive competitor who also makes fitness and instructional videos for Golfweek.com. With the government agency of Visit Victoria as our host, Dovsek and I were to play a series of matches against local golf pros and club members on several of the area’s top courses. Then I was scheduled to play several other courses on my own – when it comes to this kind of golf, I can’t get enough. Australia is a long way for an American to travel for golf, so when you’re there you have to take advantage of every possible chance to play. VisitMelbourne.com is a great place to start, as is TheSandbelt.com.
All eyes are on Augusta National, but how does the Georgia stalwart stack up against Alister MacKenzie’s other layouts?
The golf world’s attention is focused on Augusta National Golf Club this weekend, bringing plenty of attention to famed golf course architect Alister MacKenzie. But the annual home of the Masters, as great as it is, isn’t even MacKenzie’s top-rated layout.
Golfweek’s Best ranks courses every year based on the input of more than 800 raters worldwide, and Augusta National in 2022 ranked No. 3 among all classic courses in the United States built before 1960. Golfweek’s raters judge each course on a scale of 1 to 10, with only the top handful of courses in the world surpassing an average rating of 9.
Augusta National – which has been heavily modified over the decades – comes in at 9.51 out of 10, so clearly MacKenzie and the architects who followed with renovations at Augusta National did great work on the old tree farm. Funny thing, though, it’s not even the best course in the U.S. designed by the Scottish surgeon.
Alister MacKenzie
That honor belongs to a club out west. Click through to see MacKenzie’s top courses in the world, as rated by Golfweek’s Best.
It’s worth noting, MacKenzie laid his hands and intellect on many courses. The ones below include tracks that were MacKenzie originals or received substantial MacKenzie input, often with help from other designers. Several clubs he worked on, such as California Golf Club, were not included in the following calculations because much of his work has been redone in subsequent renovations or he didn’t have the majority of the design input.
From Royal County Down to Royal Melbourne, the top International Modern Courses built outside the U.S. before 1960.
Welcome to the initial Golfweek’s Best Classic International Courses list with the highest-rated courses outside the United States that were built before 1960. (Pictured atop this story: The Old Course at St. Andrews, with photo by Steve Flynn/USA TODAY Sports)
This is the first year for this International Classic list, and it is comprised of thousands of individual ratings of courses around the world. We also recently published the Modern Courses version, shining a spotlight on the best international courses built in or after 1960.
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The 800-plus members of our ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course, which is then ranked against other courses to produce the final lists.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, the location, the year it opened and the designers. After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is.
Key
r: resort course
d: daily fee
p: private course
t: tour course
m: municipal
re: real estate
* Many international private courses allow limited outside play. Contact the courses indicated for more information on their guest policies.
Augusta National is stunning, but it’s not the top-ranked course by Alister MacKenzie in the annual Golfweek’s Best rankings.
Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia is a stunning, beautiful piece of creation by famed golf course architect Alister MacKenzie. The annual host site of the Masters, it receives plenty of television exposure, with many fans having learned every hump and hollow by following shots on their high-definition screens.
Golfweek ranks courses every year based on the input of about 750 raters nationwide, and Augusta National in 2020 is ranked No. 3 among all Classic Courses in the United States built before 1960. The Golfweek’s Best raters judge every course on a scale of 1 to 10, with only the top handful of courses in the world surpassing an average rating of 9.
Augusta National comes in at 9.54, so clearly MacKenzie did great work on the old tree farm. Funny thing, though, it’s not even the best course in the U.S. designed by the Scottish surgeon.
That honor belongs to a club out west. Click through to see MacKenzie’s top courses in the world, as rated by Golfweek’s Best.
It’s worth noting, MacKenzie laid his hands and intellect on many courses. The ones below include tracks that were MacKenzie originals or received substantial MacKenzie input, often with help from other designers. Several clubs he worked on, such as California Golf Club, are not included because much of his work has been redone in subsequent renovations or he didn’t have the majority of the design input.
Here are 10 of the best composite courses – and a couple honorable mentions – to host some of golf’s biggest events through the years.
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Forget Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas or local favorite Adam Scott – the star of the Presidents Cup was the course.
Royal Melbourne Golf Club proved to be every bit the test that it had been in previous matches held there in 1998 and 2011. It is a course that has stood the test of time.
As Tiger Woods so eloquently put it, Royal Melbourne is a British Open layout with Augusta National greens. But did you know that it is actually two courses? Twelve holes from the West Course and six from the East Course were combined to make the routing for the Presidents Cup. It’s arguably the world’s most famous composite course, but it is in good company for that honor.
Here are 10 of the best composite courses – and a couple honorable mentions – to host some of golf’s biggest events through the years.
Check out the results from all 12 singles matches at the Presidents Cup as Team USA looks to make an epic comeback.
The Internationals entered the final round singles matches at the 2019 Presidents Cup with a 10-8 advantage over Tiger Woods and the Americans.
The playing captain went out first and set the tone early for Team USA, who need to win 7½ points to win the biennial competition for the eighth straight time. Ernie Els and company dominated the competition early at Australia’s gem of a track, Royal Melbourne, and need just 5½ points from the final 12 matches to win for just the second time and first since 1998.
Below you’ll find the results and information on all 12 singles matches as they conclude:
Singles results
Tiger Woods (USA) def. Abraham Ancer (Int.), 3 and 2
Just Tiger Woods doing Tiger Woods things. The U.S. playing captain called his own number, never trailed in the match, and dominated en route to a crucial first point for his team. What a match.
The first Sunday Singles point goes to Captain @TigerWoods.
Follow Tiger Woods’ final round at the 2019 Presidents Cup with shot-by-shot analysis from Royal Melbourne.
After sitting out both rounds of play on Saturday (Friday night in North America) at the 2019 Presidents Cup, playing captain Tiger Woods is back on the course for Sunday’s final singles match.
Woods, who boasts a 6-2 record in eight previous appearances, will be first out the gate for the Americans, taking on the MVP for the Internationals, Abraham Ancer. The Presidents Cup rookie has been lights-out for Ernie Els this week at Royal Melbourne, going 3-0-1 in his four matches.
Woods and Ancer tee off in Australia at 6:02 p.m. ET, and you can follow their final match with shot-by-shot analysis below.
