Seven Australian Opens, five Australian PGAs and ten other professional tournaments have been hosted at the Metropolitan Golf Club.
The Metropolitan Golf Club
Seven Australian Opens, five Australian PGAs and ten other professional tournaments have been hosted at the Metropolitan Golf Club.
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If you are looking for a great golf course on a flat piece of land, then Metropolitan is it. It is not in the conversation with Chicago GC, but it is the second best on a flat piece of land that I have ever played. I discounted Kingston Heath as not being flat enough. It can be very punitive if you are not hitting your tee shot where you need to be or not hitting the green, yet it is still a joy to play. It is a terrific course with so many good holes and the green complexes are excellent.
I have played it twice; once in November, 2014 and in February, 2019 in 105 F weather with limited breeze (after walking and playing Royal Melbourne East in the morning).
Metropolitan is a great course for members. It really does have everything and many local residents argue that it is in the same class as Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, and Victoria. I support that notion and believe it is one of the most underrated golf courses in the world. I was unable to play Victoria as it is not quite back from a renovation but Metropolitan is only slightly lower in class than Royal Melbourne’s courses as well as Kingston Heath. On my personal rating scale, I have it just outside of the top 100 in the world that I have played, as I consider the par 5’s to be a bit weak. Like some of the bunkers at Royal Melbourne, at Metropolitan the green side bunkers are typically cut right into the edge of the greens and those bunkers can be deep and steep. There is rarely a buffer space between a greenside bunker and the green.
Metropolitan has a great routing. It has everything to test your game including strategy and great green complexes. It has very well placed fairway bunkers to navigate to find the best way into the greens. I can understand those who think it lacks consistent quality in the holes to be rated higher. I read the other reviews that mention the first six holes as being the best while the back nine is not as strong as the front nine. I actually thought the back nine was a bit better overall despite the excellent starting holes, but perhaps that was the heat/fatigue kicking in. Yet I thought there were more standout holes on the front nine. So there it is, a relatively balanced golf course in terms of strength and quality.
On my second time playing it, there were five par 3's as a hole (the sixth) was closed for maintenance.
The holes I liked the most are 1, 2, 5, 8-10, 13, 15 and 16.
The first is a long par 4 of 473/415 which has a bunker at the right edge of the green and one must place their tee shot carefully on the left side of the fairway to avoid some nasty bunkers. The first hole provides a great preview of what is to come. The placement of those fairway bunkers on a fair number of slight dogleg holes requires knowing where to drive the ball as key to playing the holes well.
The second is a medium length par 3 of 175 yards that has run-offs from all sides of the green and is well bunkered. It is an excellent par 3.
The third is a longer par four which requires an excellent tee shot to get at the green, guarded by only one bunker but it has a swale behind the green that makes it difficult to recover par.
The fourth is a par 5 of 520 yards that shows the weakness of the course in that three of the par 5's are the same length and do not challenge the longer hitters. The right side of the fairway on the fifth has a sort of wash area before the scrub. The green is raised but not too difficult to read.
The fifth is regarded as one of the better holes on the golf course due to the tighter driving line caused by the bunkers on the left side of the fairway. It is a terrific short par 4 where the green has a huge slope on the right to feed into a huge greenside bunker. It is classic Metropolitan.
The sixth was closed on my second tour which was a pity. I do recall it being a fairly straight forward par 5 with a green that is the most sloped but pretty easy to hit in three despite deep bunkers surrounding it.
The seventh is a long par three of 220 yards with a flattish green and perhaps was the least interesting hole on the course despite the bunkers left and right. The green itself was not interesting.
I loved the 8th hole, a short par 5 but tree-lined with a wicked dogleg. The green has huge swales in it and a well struck approach shot must stay away from the bunker on the left. The eighth begins a terrific set of three holes including the long par 4 ninth hole where a perfect fade lessens the distance quite a lot to a well defended green. The tenth is an even longer par 4 that is excellently shaped as a dogleg left seemingly all the way to the green which has three bunkers. This is a nice start to the back nine.
I thought the 170 yard eleventh hole was one of the prettiest holes on the golf course, hitting over sand/scrub to a slightly raised green with deep bunkers on the left side. This hole is not as easy as it looks from the tee.
The twelfth is a shortish par 4 that felt to me like the fairway was a little wider than it needed to be. The green seemed a bit easier than some others despite once again bunkers on either side eating into the green.
The thirteenth is a phenomenal short par 3 of just under 160 yards to a raised green surrounded by deep bunkers. It is the second most visually attractive hole on the golf course.
The fourteenth has a longer par five at 595/550 but I found this hole to be one of the easier ones on the golf course and the fairway seemed to lack definition despite the line of trees.
The fifteenth hole penalizes severely the person who hits a fade and cannot control it. It is also the one of the longer par 4’s on the course. It has a green that slopes left to right and bunkers eating right into it. I felt it was the most difficult hole on the golf course.
The short par 4 dogleg right comes next and is a very strong hole due to the size and slope of the green. I loved the design of this golf hole both times I played it.
The seventeenth has trees sort of in the middle of the fairway about 75 yards out from the green. I hear the members and locals like this collection of trees, but I found them out of character to the golf course and for me the large green detracted from the hole.
The long par 4 eighteenth has one of the better greens on the golf course with multi-tiers which make the green side bunkers either side play even deeper. It is a difficult finishing hole if you do not find the middle of the fairway with some length. Like many I three putted the hole, under-estimating the speed and the break, yet I thought the green was fair even if a little more tilted than many of the other greens on the course.
The more I think about Metropolitan, the more I like it. It really does offer everything in a golf course. I suppose if the members wanted to push it higher in the rankings they would add even more undulations to the golf course. In my opinion, the course might then become unplayable given one should have some reward for staying out of the greenside bunkers. The conditioning is very good. The members should be proud of their golf course and if in Melbourne, this is a golf course one should try to play at least twice, if not more.
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