Royal Melbourne Golf Club - East Course

Origins

When Alister MacKenzie finished his routing for Royal Melbourne's West Course in 1926, he had also sketched a rough nine-hole layout for a second course on the property, but he left Australia before it could be built. Alex Russell, the 1924 Australian Open champion who had supervised construction of the West to MacKenzie's plans, took on the task of designing a full 18-hole companion course himself. Working again with head greenkeeper Mick Morcom, who had shaped the West's greens and bunkers, Russell incorporated a handful of holes from MacKenzie's unbuilt sketch into his own routing.

The East Course opened for play in 1932.

Design Philosophy

Russell modelled the East's bunkering and green contours closely on the West, giving both courses the same sandbelt character of firm turf, undulating fairways, and steeply pitched greens cut from sandy heathland. The two courses nonetheless play differently: the East's fairways, while generous by broader sandbelt standards, run tighter than the West's, and its bunkers are shaped with somewhat less depth and drama. The routing opens and closes on the club's central 'home paddock' alongside the West, and its short-to-mid-length par fours -- several with clear risk-and-reward options from the tee -- put a premium on precise positional play rather than length.

Development

The East has changed only modestly since construction. The short sixth hole was moved roughly 15 degrees away from the property boundary in 2004, and course architect Tom Doak reworked both the sixth and the short par-four 15th in 2012. The routing and green complexes Russell and Morcom built in the early 1930s otherwise remain largely intact.

Recognition

The East Course is routinely described as the less heralded of Royal Melbourne's two layouts, sitting in the shadow of a West Course frequently rated among the finest in the world. That comparison undersells it: the club and independent ranking panels alike regularly place the East among Australia's best courses and within the world's top 100, and golfers revisiting it after years away often note how little it suffers next to its more famous sibling. Ben Crenshaw is among the players who have praised its par-three 16th as one of the most attractive short holes in Melbourne.

Today

Two of the East's holes, the 17th and 18th, are woven into Royal Melbourne's Composite Course -- the 12-West/6-East championship routing used for the club's largest events -- but the East as a standalone course is reserved for member and visitor play rather than professional tournaments. The club completed a major upgrade to its parking, practice, and putting facilities in 2023, and as of 2026 has scheduled further course renovation works that have temporarily affected visitor tee-time availability.