The National Golf Club (Moonah)

The National Golf Club is Australia’s largest private golf club and it’s situated in two locations, downtown Frankston North and Cape Schanck on the dramatically undulating and beautifully sandy seaside land of Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

There’s no shortage of golf to be played at The National Golf Club's Mornington site, with three courses to choose from… the Old, the Gunnamatta (formerly called the Ocean) and the Moonah. All three courses appear in Australia’s Top 50 but if you only have the chance to play one round at The National Golf Club, make sure it’s on the Moonah course, which was designed by Greg Norman and Bob Harrison.

The Mornington Peninsula could easily be one long stretch of golf holes and it must have been a challenge for the architects to decide on their routing plan. The rolling topography is perfectly suited to golf but the property is irregularly shaped which no doubt made the routing even trickier. The links-like land pitches and rolls across swales and hollows in a most pleasing manner, but when the fickle prevailing winds are up, hold on to your hat and ignore your scorecard.

You’ll need good mastery of the low bump-and-run shot to get close to the pin on the Moonah’s raised, but open-fronted greens. This is a very traditional course with outstanding bunkering and you’ll need the old-fashioned game to score well here at the fabulous National Moonah. If the club could somehow assemble a stronger collection of one-shot holes, we think the raw and memorable Moonah would warrant permanent inclusion in the World Top 100.

In 2015, the members of Long Island Country Club and The National Golf Club voted in favour of a merger to create the first 72-hole private golf club in Australia. Club members can now enjoy full playing rights across four Top 100 ranked courses.