Seven Australian Opens, five Australian PGAs and ten other professional tournaments have been hosted at the Metropolitan Golf Club.
Overall rating
5.0
The Metropolitan Golf Club
Seven Australian Opens, five Australian PGAs and ten other professional tournaments have been hosted at the Metropolitan Golf Club.
Australian Open winners at The Metropolitan Golf Club:
Lee Westwood (Eng) 1997,
Brad Faxon (USA) 1993,
Rodger Davis (Aus) 1986,
Jack Newton (Aus) 1979,
Peter Thomson (Aus) 1951,
Gene Sarazen (USA) 1936,
Frank Eyre (Aus) 1930.
All the Sandbelt courses are celebrated for the rugged beauty and challenge of their bunkering, many from the sketching pad of the itinerant Alister MacKenzie, Metropolitan has common features to the other benchmark courses. Whereas you marvel at the expanse of sand at Royal Melbourne and the rugged edges of Kingston Heath, many of Metropolitan’s bunkers are cut into the greens’ edges in the most stunning way. There is simply no better hand finishing of a golf course to be found anywhere else in the world.
Indeed, Metropolitan and the Melbourne Golf Club (before the Royal was attached) were one in the same before the loss of land to the encroaching city necessitated Melbourne’s move to Port Philip Bay. The remaining members authorised the purchase of land and a two-storey farmhouse and formed Caulfield Golf Club in 1908, playing on a course designed by club member J.B. MacKenzie, an engineer. Tournament play began here in 1930 following a series of modifications suggested by Alister MacKenzie in 1926.
Much of the back nine was reconstructed by American architect Dick Wilson on adjacent market garden land during a visit he made to Australia in 1959. As a consequence the 7th and the back nine between the 10th and 17th are markedly different holes to the original layout.
Seven Australian Opens, five Australian PGAs and ten other professional tournaments have been hosted at Metropolitan. The World Golf Championships Match Play Championship was held here in 2001 where Steve Stricker prevailed over an illustrious field to beat Pierre Fulke in the final. The world’s finest arrived and heaped praise on the course. Memorable comments included Ernie Els who said: “I’ve checked my schedule (for the year) and I’d say this is the best course I’m going to play for the whole year.” Stuart Appleby risked the ire of the committee at Augusta National when he made the following comments: “I think it’s a whole set of clubs ahead of Augusta in condition. This is a natural golf course where the grass is playable twelve months of the year.”
Metropolitan is a fine members’ club with a tremendous course and a just reputation for excellent all-year-round conditioning.
The above passage is an extract from The Finest Golf Courses of Asia and Australasia by James Spence. Reproduced with kind permission.
In 2015, the club appointed the firm of Crafter + Mogford to improve a number of Dick Wilson’s holes. Crafter + Mogford take up the story:
“The club engaged Dick Wilson to design a number of new holes and to fit them into the fabric of the existing course. While he certainly designed some fine holes, with the 7th, 11th, 13th, 15th and 16th holes being the stand out – there were also some less than fine ones, holes that have some compromises. Overall the terrain of the new land was flatter than the lost land and this loss of character was difficult to replace. And here lies our challenge – to imbue these holes with similar features which abound holes 1 through 5, the 8th, 9th and 18th and bring greater unity to this already tremendous golf course.”
The latest ranking of the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World serves as the ultimate global golf bucket list. Most members of our World Top 100 Panel are seasoned golfers, each playing 20-30 of these courses annually while travelling extensively over decades to form their opinions on others. We recognise that opinions vary—even among our panel members. Rankings are subjective, and there are undoubtedly 50 or more courses in the UK and USA alone that could easily fit onto this list. Links Golf Pilgrimages The rankings
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