Royal Melbourne Golf Club - West Course

Origins

The Royal Melbourne Golf Club was founded in 1891 at Caulfield and granted its royal prefix by Queen Victoria in 1895. The club moved to Sandringham in 1901, on land adjoining its present site, before deciding in the mid-1920s to build a new course at Black Rock. Alister MacKenzie, the Scottish architect who would go on to design Augusta National and Cypress Point, was brought to Australia in late 1926 to consult on the new layout.

After examining the site for a few weeks, he produced a routing that members accepted in December 1926. Alex Russell, a club member and the reigning Australian Open champion, was chosen to oversee construction, working with head greenkeeper Mick Morcom to shape the course's greens and bunkers by horse-drawn plough and scoop. The result opened for play in 1931 as the West Course.

Design Philosophy

MacKenzie's routing works with the rolling contours of the sandbelt land rather than against it; greens are shaped as miniature versions of the surrounding terrain, and crisp, vertical-edged bunkers cut into fairways and putting surfaces. Most holes dogleg, so angle of approach matters more than sheer length. MacKenzie prized playability for the average golfer as much as for the scratch player, wanting the course to reward good shots rather than simply punish poor ones.

Exactly how much of the finished course belongs to MacKenzie and how much to Russell is debated: the club credits MacKenzie with the design and Russell with supervising construction, but Russell had already produced an accomplished course proposal of his own in the mid-1920s, and several outside sources, including Wikipedia and Top 100 Golf Courses, list the pair jointly as co-designers.

Development

Claude Crockford succeeded Morcom as head greenkeeper in 1937 and spent four decades refining the course, including building a new seventh hole. A club-run watering scheme was introduced in 1987, and the West underwent restoration and minor lengthening ahead of the 2011 Presidents Cup. Additional irrigation storage was added between the 3rd and 6th holes in 2013, and the club completed a major upgrade to its parking, practice and putting facilities in 2023.

As of early 2026 the club has further course renovation work scheduled, which has temporarily limited visitor tee-time availability.

Recognition

The West Course has long been ranked the best course in Australia and is a regular fixture among the top ten in the world in rankings from panels such as Golf Digest and Top 100 Golf Courses. Its par-3 5th and the strategic dogleg 6th are frequently singled out in golf architecture writing as among the finest holes in world golf, and the course's greens have carried a reputation for speed and firmness since Crockford's era.

Today

The West Course remains a members' course first: international and interstate visitors need to hold membership at another golf club and complete a verification process, with tee times offered on limited days each week. Selected West holes continue to be folded into the Composite Course for Royal Melbourne's largest events, most recently the 2019 Presidents Cup. As of early 2026 the club has scheduled further renovation work on the course, temporarily limiting visitor tee-time availability, while heritage preservation and ongoing native heathland restoration continue alongside it.