Royal Melbourne West

The West Course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club has two main advantages over the Melbourne Sandbelt’s many other excellent golf courses: 1) it received the lion’s share of architect Alister MacKenzie’s attention during his visit to Australia in 1926, and 2) it sits on the most dramatic topography in the area. The combination of a fully realized MacKenzie design and an exceptional piece of land — along with world-class turf conditions — makes Royal Melbourne West a contender for the best course in the world.

Like many of Melbourne’s top golf clubs, Royal Melbourne was founded in the 1890s at a location close to the city center, but it moved south in the early 20th century to escape urbanization. In 1926, the club hired Alister MacKenzie, then best known for his association with the R&A, to design a new course on a sandy, rolling property in the suburb of Black Rock. MacKenzie arrived in Melbourne in late October 1926 and spent about a month laying out holes at Royal Melbourne and moonlighting as a consultant at other clubs in the region. Before he left, he gave his approval for Alex Russell, a club member and accomplished amateur player, to supervise the rest of the construction. With the help of head greenkeeper Mick Morcom, Russell completed the West Course, as well as his own East Course, over the next several years. The West opened for play in 1931, with the East following in 1932.

The two courses complement each other, seamlessly combining into a Composite Course for big tournaments. The West stands out, however, for its bold use of large-scale landforms and its broad, often viciously tilted greens. Its big, cloud-like, crisp-edged bunkers — positioned to provoke thought rather than merely punish poor strikes — established a template that nearly every other notable Melbourne golf club has since followed. Best of all, the course has not been substantially altered since Russell finished it. Thanks to Royal Melbourne’s lineage of long-tenured superintendents (from Mick Morcom to Claude Crockford to today’s John Forsyth), as well as to light-touch restoration work by Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design, the West Course is one of the world’s best-preserved examples of Golden Age golf architecture.

Take Note...

The old ways. Mick Morcom seeded the original putting surfaces at Royal Melbourne with a rare cultivar of bentgrass called Sutton’s Mix. This turf — which, according to historian Neil Crafter, may have contained some fescue — thrived for the next several decades. In the 1980s, however, the club decided to re-sod the greens with a more up-to-date Penncross bentgrass in an effort to modernize playing conditions (and, presumably, aesthetics). By the late 90s, Royal Melbourne was already converting the putting surfaces back to Sutton’s Mix. Sometimes the old ways are the best.

The ground game. First-time visitors to Royal Melbourne may be surprised to find that the grass immediately around the greens is a different color from both the Bermudagrass of the fairways and the Sutton’s Mix of the putting surfaces. That’s because it is fescue. Royal Melbourne uses this bouncy variety of turf for its green surrounds in order to allow players to hit low, running approach shots.

‍Gathering points. Like MacKenzie’s Augusta National, Royal Melbourne is an excellent spectator venue. This is partly because of the intimate, interlocking routings of the West and Composite courses, which create hubs of activity where multiple holes converge. If you go to a tournament at Royal Melbourne, I especially recommend standing on the hill by the seventh green on the West Course, where you’ll be able to watch action on the eighth, ninth, 10th, and 18th holes on the West as well as the first hole on the East. (The numbering for the Composite Course will be different, obviously.)

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