National (Old) - Victoria - Australia

By far the best of the three courses, this one offers the most to all golfers. Unlike Moonah with its brute force requirements this course both beguiles and deceives. Not a long course, which is just as well, as it is tight and liberally bunkered. The greens are very large and have whole herds of elephants buried in them; the wrong side of the whole can be a good three putt. Two par threes I played I was on for one and walked off with five, simply because I was in the wrong place on the green. I haven't seen greens that tricky since Royal Melbourne, and what seemed like good shots would often end up 40 or 50 feet away. The course is very hilly as well, so if you don't like too much exercise, recommend you use a golf cart. However, the real joy of this place is the sheer beauty, with views to die for, especially at the short 7th. Trent Jones has ensured he has made use of the beauty of the tee tree covered dunes by winding his way up hill and down dale. This can cause confusion as to the correct line to take off tees, so if you are not playing with a member buy the yardage book. The 3rd completely bamboozled me even though I could see the entire hole, it doglegs to the left and you just have no idea without yardage as to how far everything is. I also enjoyed the tenth, a par five where I deliberately drove right to avoid the fairway bunkers, and found that even though I was on the fairway, all I could was hit a 7 iron as I was completely blocked out by trees to go for the green. A better play would have been hybrid short of bunkers and then wood to green. And there are quite a few challenges like that to be had. Love this course, will be back lots of times.

The first of the 3 courses at the National Golf Club with a distinctive look and feel. This RTJ Junior layout from 1985 is considerably different from the Moonah course as each hole navigates around dense vegetation terrain with more dramatic changes in elevation. There are many beautiful views of the Sea, the surrounding Cape Schanck national park and the southern coastline running all the way up to Portsea. The original clubhouse was behind the 5th green, but was recently torn down and removed completely. This then changed the routing as the original 1st hole is now the 6th hole. Many believe, and I share the same opinion, that knocking this clubhouse was a shame – more so because of the negative impact to the routing. The highlight is the well documented and photographed par 3 7th hole playing over a deep ravine to a shallow wide putting surface. The background of the Sea is distracting enough from such elevation! Almost all of the holes play through an enclosed corridor of vegetation with very large bunker complexes. It’s very much target golf and man-made. Walking the course is not really an option given the distances between holes, the changes in elevation and the ravines that have to be carried. The course isn't as penal as the Moonah and is more conducive to having fun while playing golf. Many consider it the best of the 3 courses. From a scratch golfer’s perspective, I certainly enjoyed the challenge of the tight tee-shots and found it much more scorable than the Moonah. It’s visually more enjoyable being able to see the Sea and play from great heights. The change in the routing leads to a very anticlimactic short par 4 18th hole, but otherwise, I recommend it to all visitors. God only knows what Alister MacKenzie would have created if he ventured down to Cape Schanck and witnessed the untapped land with staggering potential down along the ocean.

RTJ II has a habit of creating tough courses and the Old is no exception. The tight rollercoaster greens seemed a bit tricked up for my liking and coupled with narrow treed fairways it called for very restrained golf. A tough walk on this undulating track took its toll in the heat and the only saving grace was the spectacular views from the high points. This is my friend’s favourite course the National but it’s second best IMO behind the excellent Moonah IMO especially as I lost two balls on the crazy P5 8th.