RACV Royal Pines Resort (Gold & Green)

The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria operates a number of resorts in the states of Victoria and Queensland and their 27-hole Royal Pines complex is one of five different golf facilities (the other four are at Healesville, Torquay, Goldfields and Cape Schanck) where guests can play a round during a visit to these leisure establishments.

The Matsushita Investment and Development Company originally developed the Royal Pines Resort in the late 1980s and Japanese architect Tomojiro Maruyama designed the first 27-hole layout. Two years after opening, the resort hosted the ANZ Ladies Masters and that event has been a permanent fixture on the women’s professional golfing calendar every year since.

A fourth nine was added in 1996, creating a new 18-hole West course to complement the 18 holes on the East. Six years after this 36-hole set up was in play, the Royal Pines master plan was reappraised and the radical decision taken to scrap the fairways of the West and replace them with a 9-hole circuit that would still allow three different 18-hole configurations.

And so the Graham Marsh-designed nine opened in 2004, offering golfers the opportunity to now play three distinct courses – Gold (formerly known as the Aroona or “Running Water”), Green (previously called Binnowee or “Green Place”) and Blue (Wangara or “West Wind”).