Go and look at a Sandbelt bunker before you look at anything else. The face is cut down into the ground rather than piled on top of it, the sand runs up almost vertically, and the turf hangs over the top edge in a lip trimmed by hand by someone who cared. That is what you are flying for, and the five courses that do it best are Royal Melbourne (West), Kingston Heath, Victoria, Metropolitan and Peninsula Kingswood.
Royal Melbourne (West), Kingston Heath, Victoria, Metropolitan and Peninsula Kingswood. Four of those five sit within about twenty minutes of each other [confirm] in the suburbs south-east of the city, which means you can play the best week of golf in the southern hemisphere and sleep in the same bed every night.
Now go and look at a bunker. Any of them, at any of these clubs. The face is cut down into the ground rather than piled on top of it, the sand runs up almost vertically, and the turf hangs over the top edge in a lip trimmed by hand by someone who cared. Behind it, ti-tree. That bunker is the reason people cross an ocean for this, and it is also the reason your handicap is about to become a topic of conversation.
The caveat nobody prints
You are playing golf in the suburbs. No coastline, no mountain, no water worth the name, and on several tees you can hear a lawnmower and see a Colorbond fence. If you need scenery, go to Barnbougle. The Sandbelt gives you ground, sand and greens, and after three days you stop noticing the fences entirely.
The other thing: choosing the courses is the easy part. Most of these clubs are private and do not take unaccompanied visitor bookings [confirm]. Getting on is the trip. Everything below assumes access is sorted.
1. Royal Melbourne, West
Alister MacKenzie routed it, Alex Russell built it [confirm year and division of labour]. It is the most famous golf course in Australia and it earns the noise, mostly through the greens, which are large, tilted, and firm enough that a shot landing on the correct side of the flag can still finish thirty metres away and be nobody's fault but yours.
The honest read: it is the hardest tee time in the country and the most expensive [confirm], and in a hot northerly the greens can cross the line from firm into a coin toss. Do not build the trip around the Composite course either. It is assembled for tournaments [confirm which holes], and the West on a normal Tuesday is the golf course you came to see.
2. Kingston Heath
Routed by Dan Soutar, bunkered by MacKenzie [confirm both, and the years]. Shorter than you expect [confirm total length] and better than almost anything longer. If Royal Melbourne is the one you have heard of, this is the one you will not stop talking about on the flight home, because the bunkering makes an argument on every hole and you lose most of them.
The par three on the back nine, the short one over sand [confirm hole number], is the single best short hole in the country and possibly the best photograph. The honest read: the land is flat. Genuinely flat. All of the interest here was built, not found, which is either the whole point or a slight disappointment depending on what you like.
3. Victoria
Next door to Royal Melbourne, sharing the same seam of sand and a good deal of the same history [confirm]. Greens complexes that reward the low, running shot, and a set of bunkers that will make you reconsider whether you are actually a good driver of the ball.
The honest read: it lives in its neighbour's shadow, and two or three holes on the property are ordinary by the standard of the other fifteen [confirm which]. That is a criticism roughly on the level of complaining that the second Bond film is not as good as the third.
4. Metropolitan
The best turf in Australia [confirm whether the club or a ranking body says this, otherwise mark as opinion]. Fairways you could putt from, greens that run true at speed, and a standard of presentation that has you tucking your shirt in on the walk from the car park.
The honest read: it is the least interesting piece of ground of the five, and the round asks you the same question a few too many times. If you had to cut one from a four-day trip, this is the one, and you would still be annoyed about it.
5. Peninsula Kingswood, North
The product of a merger between two clubs and a full rebuild by Ogilvy Cocking Mead [confirm names, dates and which course is which]. Bigger in scale than the classics, wider, more modern in its shaping, and the newest reason to add a fifth day.
The honest read: it sits roughly forty minutes from the rest of them [confirm], so it breaks the neat geography of the week, and the clubhouse has the polish of a corporate box rather than the smell of a golf club. Play it first or last, never in the middle.
The two we left out are Yarra Yarra and Commonwealth, and on a six-day trip both go straight back in.
What most people get wrong
They book flights before they have access. They take carts, on courses that are twenty minutes end to end on foot and are designed to be walked. And they come in January or February, when Melbourne can hand you 38 degrees and a north wind, instead of March or April [confirm best months], when the ground is still firm and you can feel your hands.
I got the 15th at Kingston Heath [confirm hole] wrong twice in the same round, once from the tee and once from a bunker I could not see out of, and a member watching from the next fairway said only that everyone does that, in the tone of a man who had done it that morning.
If you've played Pinehurst No. 2, you know the feeling of a green that declines your shot rather than punishing it. The Sandbelt does the same thing with a quarter of the fuss and about a tenth of the marketing.
The sand you are standing in was a beach long before anyone thought to mow it.
One next step: work out access before anything else. Talk to us, talk to a member, talk to an accredited operator, but sort that first and let the itinerary follow. Get in touch and we will tell you honestly whether the week you want is available.
