St. Andrews Beach Golf Course complements numerous American courses that are frequently preferred by younger players looking for adventure
St. Andrews Beach, initially intended to be a private club that fell on hard times. It has since been revived as a must-see daily-fee facility. Its layout by Tom Doak and Mike Clayton opened in 2006, and simply put, it’s familiar to the classic Sandbelt courses to its north as far as turf conditions go, but the facility’s irresistible vibe and design set it apart from other courses we played in Australia.
For comparison’s sake, St. Andrews Beach matches up well with several American layouts often favored by younger players looking for adventure. Think Sweetens Cove in Tennessee or Tobacco Road in North Carolina. The simple clubhouse at St. Andrews Beach is a temporary metal building (there are plans to build a new clubhouse), and the bathrooms are out back in a trailer – again with that Sweetens Cove comparison. There is zero pretentiousness, just golf. Not even a range, as players can warm up into a net next to the parking lot. The peak green fee is about $70 in U.S. dollars.
Gary Lisbon, an Australian golf photographer and writer of international acclaim who also helps direct golf tours, had joined us as a sherpa on much of this trip, and his drone frequently followed us around the humps and bumps and sometimes tumbling slopes of St. Andrews Beach. Kangaroos watched our threesome from adjoining fairways, with several larger specimens sauntering onto the sixth green as we played our approaches – no need for an ecotour here, the ‘roos were everywhere.
St. Andrews Beach presented a totally relaxed setting, just golf and laughs and big animals that could care less about first, second and sometimes third attempts to escape deep bunkers. Those traps might not be as impeccably maintained as at some of the nearby private clubs, but they fit perfectly well in the raw terrain and add greatly to the memorability factor. The course ranks No. 19 in Australia and New Zealand.
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.
A golfer’s education is incomplete without seeing Royal Melbourne and the courses of Australia’s Sandbelt. Many American golfers, softened by the primping of their home courses, love visiting classic British links for their rugged naturalism and the …
A golfer’s education is incomplete without seeing Royal Melbourne and the courses of Australia’s Sandbelt.
Many American golfers, softened by the primping of their home courses, love visiting classic British links for their rugged naturalism and the ability to play a variety of shots along firm, fast-running turf that is exposed to the elements. British golfers, by contrast, sometimes tire of the vagaries of links golf and relish the high standard of greenkeeping present at many American courses, where the grass does indeed seem greener and the sun often shines brighter.
What’s special about the courses of the Australian Sandbelt is that nearly every course in this concentrated area of the Melbourne, Victoria suburbs, whether humble or celebrated throughout the world, manages to achieve the best aspects of both British and American golf without the downsides of either, combining beautifully presented inland courses that look and play as though they would be at home on a rough-hewn, fast-running British links.
Achieving this rare trick requires a combination of sandy soil on rolling terrain, the kind of land that provides excellent drainage and promotes the quality grasses that make courses bouncy while retaining a parkland feel.
This chemistry produces a style of golf that led Victoria native Peter Thomson to feel at home in winning five Open Championships in the British Isles from 1954 to 1965. He felt unwelcome on squishy American courses that eliminated, in Thomson’s opinion, the essential third dimension of the game: the run of the ball.
The greatest of these Sandbelt courses, Royal Melbourne Golf Club, hosts its third Presidents Cup in December and comprises two 18-hole courses (East and West), combined in various permutations through the years to form a Composite Course over which this year’s competition will be played. Yet Royal Melbourne is far from the only show in town.
If Royal Melbourne is, design-wise, to Australia what Augusta National is to America, sharing Alister MacKenzie as the co-designer of both, then surely Kingston Heath qualifies as that country’s Merion, a compact, beautifully routed championship course that requires shotmaking of the highest standard while being enjoyable for club-level players.
No. 15 at Royal Melbourne (Gary Lisbon via PGA Tour)
Victoria Golf Club, just across the street from Royal Melbourne, produced Thomson, 1954 British Amateur champion Doug Bachli and 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy. Even if not for its more-famous neighbor, people should get on an airplane to see Victoria’s distinctive bunkering and beguiling half-par holes.
Yet, just as it is always better to ask a local for tips on finding the best pub around, I asked several Australian friends to share their thoughts on what makes Royal Melbourne and the courses of the Sandbelt so admired and what we might learn from them.
What makes the Sandbelt distinct as one of the world’s great spiritual homes for the game?
Will Kay, a former member of Royal Melbourne: “With all of the best architects having their work on display in a 20-mile radius, it improves everyone’s standards accordingly. The unreasonable density of world-class courses is not seen anywhere else, and people in Melbourne don’t know how good they have it.”
No. 3 at Royal Melbourne (Gary Lisbon via PGA Tour)
Lynne Claney Brown, 15-time women’s club champion at Kingston Heath: “A high standard of conditioning and year-round golf probably makes Melbourne an ideal location for high-quality golf. A temperate climate – not too wet in winter, no snow, moderate rain, warm and dry summers – is ideal for consistent golfing conditions year round. Mix in with that, majestic native trees and plants and constant birdsong make for pleasant environs for golf.”
Mike Clayton, touring professional and course architect at Clayton DeVries Pont: “The strategies are quite simple on most Sandbelt courses. There is always an easier shot from one half of the fairway – and it’s a side almost always guarded by a fairway bunker or some rough grass. It’s also the home of some of the greatest short holes – between 130 and 170 yards – in the world.”
How would other courses around the world, regardless of climate or geography, benefit from copying ideas found at Royal Melbourne?
Neil Crafter, golf course architect, Crafter + Mogford Golf Strategies: “Dr. Alister MacKenzie and Alex Russell designed holes where width and latitude were given off the tee. But if the golfer was happy to finish anywhere on the fairway, he could face a very daunting and difficult approach over bunkers to a sloping green, if not positioned correctly.”
Will Kay: “There is a lack of length from the members tees which makes it more appealing to the masses. A short course can be even more interesting and challenging than a long course, and this is often forgotten in today’s efforts at design. This should not be confused with it being known as an easy course, as these tracks in the middle of summer are as difficult as anywhere.”
No. 9 at Royal Melbourne (Gary Lisbon via PGA Tour)
Mike Clayton: “Mowing lines. There is no rough between fairways and the fairway bunkers, so the ball runs freely into them – and if you are good enough or lucky enough to skirt the edge, the ball is never held up by long grass. There is no attempt to make the rough uniform or to create ‘equity of punishment.’ Members never complain about ‘unfair’ lies in the rough.”
In addition to the well-known Sandbelt courses like Kingston Heath, Victoria and Metropolitan, what courses would you take a visiting friend to play?
Mike Clayton: “Alister MacKenzie never visited Woodlands for a day, but if he had it’d be much better known. Spring Valley was designed by Vern Morcom, son of the greenkeeper who built all the MacKenzie work at Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. Long Island was a struggling club with a terrific course until The National took control and secured its short-term (and hopefully long-term) future. With a little remedial work, it could be one of the best courses in the city.”
Lynne Claney Brown: “I always consider playing Woodlands an experience. Tight fairways and small, hard greens require a lot of skill. Spring Valley is often called the ‘hidden jewel’. It is a great design always in great shape.”
Will Kay: “Peninsula Kingswood has recently undergone some fantastic changes which line it up incredibly well against Royal Melbourne.”
Neil Crafter: “I would take them to Yarra Yarra, Commonwealth and Woodlands. That next tier of Sandbelt courses are brilliant and will give any visitor a wonderful sense of what golf in Melbourne’s Sandbelt is all about.”
