Settlers Run Golf & Country Club

Settlers Run Golf & Country Club officially opened in 2007 and it's the latest course in the Cranbourne area which is at the centre of a 500-home residential estate that Greg Norman’s golf and property company helped to establish just outside the city of Melbourne.

On a triangular shaped site, the course’s generous fairways weave in and out of a substantial housing development that (incredibly) somehow manages to lie pretty unobtrusively in the background, divorced from the golfing action.

Some of the holes – particularly on the front nine – have significant elevation changes and the par five 9th is already a firm favourite with a downhill drive followed by a long uphill second (and probably third) shot to a well protected green.

There are only three par three holes on the card, each of which plays to a different position on the compass. The best of this trio is probably the shortest, the 165-yard 11th, and its green is framed to the right by tall pine trees, with an enormous bunker complex protecting the left side of the putting surface.

The Country Club at Settlers Run has all the usual facilities that you would expect to find at a modern complex – indoor pool, tennis court, sauna and gymnasium – and, managed by Troon golf, it will appeal to golfers who enjoy their golf game with a corporate twist.