Amazing Australia: Melbourne and Victoria tick all the boxes for perfect golf, from Royal Melbourne down to the Mornington Peninsula

We took a break for a day after Royal Melbourne’s East course to see more of the countryside, heading an hour south of Melbourne to the Mornington Peninsula and Cape Schanck. We spent a morning riding electric bikes along a narrow path that offered frequently stunning sea views and an afternoon at the ecotourist Moonlit Sanctuary getting friendly with koala bears, kangaroos and a tame python. Even with the bike tour – and thanks largely to the tiny motors that did much of the work instead of relying purely on pedal power – it was a chance to rest our golf legs before tackling two fantastic layouts on the peninsula.

Based on the incredibly hilly terrain of the peninsula around Cape Schanck, I couldn’t wait. On the drive down from Melbourne, I was slack-jawed looking at ground that careened up, down, around sand dunes, stretching to the coast like a miniature mountain range.

First up was St. Andrews Beach, initially intended to be a private club that fell on hard times. It has since been revived as a must-see daily-fee facility. Its layout by Tom Doak and Mike Clayton opened in 2006, and simply put, it’s familiar to the classic Sandbelt courses to its north as far as turf conditions go, but the facility’s irresistible vibe and design set it apart from other courses we played in Australia.

For comparison’s sake, St. Andrews Beach matches up well with several American layouts often favored by younger players looking for adventure. Think Sweetens Cove in Tennessee or Tobacco Road in North Carolina. The simple clubhouse at St. Andrews Beach is a temporary metal building (there are plans to build a new clubhouse), and the bathrooms are out back in a trailer – again with that Sweetens Cove comparison. There is zero pretentiousness, just golf. Not even a range, as players can warm up into a net next to the parking lot. The peak green fee is about $70 in U.S. dollars.

Gary Lisbon, an Australian golf photographer and writer of international acclaim who also helps direct golf tours, had joined us as a sherpa on much of this trip, and his drone frequently followed us around the humps and bumps and sometimes tumbling slopes of St. Andrews Beach. Kangaroos watched our threesome from adjoining fairways, with several larger specimens sauntering onto the sixth green as we played our approaches – no need for an ecotour here, the ‘roos were everywhere.

Averee Dovsek hits a tee shot as kangaroos saunter in the rough at St. Andrews Beach Golf Course in Victoria, Australia. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek).

St. Andrews Beach presented a totally relaxed setting, just golf and laughs and big animals that could care less about first, second and sometimes third attempts to escape deep bunkers. Those traps might not be as impeccably maintained as at some of the nearby private clubs, but they fit perfectly well in the raw terrain and add greatly to the memorability factor. The course ranks No. 19 in Australia and New Zealand.

The design features linksy golf turned up to an 11. Doak and Clayton built greens with backboards, sideboards, extreme runoffs and deep bunkers that, as with the Sandbelt courses, are frequently carved right into greens that are tied perfectly into their lumpy surrounds.

Many of the fairways are wide enough to land an aircraft, but the demands of the greens require players to pick precise lines off the tees to set up the best angles of approach. It’s a minimalist layout with little dirt having been moved, as is Doak’s reputation, but there’s nothing minimal about the fun factor. You often have to aim away from the hole and use the extreme slopes to feed a ball toward the flag, similar to the aforementioned Tobacco Road. It’s incredibly fun golf, the type of place I could see myself playing every week and never tiring of it.

We wrapped up our nine-hole video shoot, then Lisbon and I raced around the back nine to try to keep our itinerary on schedule. We had more golf to play, but I’ll likely never stop thinking about playing St. Andrews Beach again.

The sunset view from above The National Golf Club in Victoria, Australia (Jason Lusk/Golfweek).

Proximity again benefitted our trip, as it was just a few minutes along the coast to The National Golf Club, home to three 18-hole layouts on-site and a fourth less than an hour away. The Gunnamatta renovated by Doak, the Moonah by Greg Norman and Bob Harrison, and the Old Course by Robert Trent Jones Jr. are together on the Mornington Peninsula. The club’s Long Island course by Gordon Oliver is in Frankston closer to Melbourne.

After a quick lunch in a clubhouse perched atop a hill with incredible views across golf holes to the beach and breaking waves beyond, Lisbon and I teamed up for a nine-hole match against Dovsek and club professional Sheradyn Johnson. The boys melted down in this one and the ladies surged to victory behind the consistency of Johnson’s golf swing.

The Old is different than the other courses we played, up and down formidable hills with large greens full of challenging slopes – perhaps too much so in some cases. It has that Australian firm and bouncy turf, but it’s largely an aerial game at the Old, with more forced carries than the other Australian layouts we played. The fairways are fairly wide, but the outlying native areas are sometimes impenetrable. Basically, it’s a hard golf course.

No. 7 at The National Golf Club’s Old Course in Victoria, Australia (Jason Lusk/Golfweek).

But to focus on that entirely would be to miss the views. As the Old climbs on its front nine, it offers panoramas not seen at the other Victoria courses we played. Sand and surf far below are the backdrops for several holes, and then there’s the 152-yard, par-3 seventh that plays across a jungled chasm to a peninsula green perched high above the beach. It’s a do-or-die tee shot, struck well into the heart of the green or, if misplayed, gone forever.

We didn’t get to play the other two courses at The National’s main location, but the Moonah Course ranks No. 21 in Australia and New Zealand, followed by the Gunnamatta Course in the 12^th spot. Each course varies in style, but it’s the fantastic surroundings and views that set this club apart from its neighbors in Victoria.