Royal Melbourne Golf Club - The West Course

The West is typically rated higher than the East. Its 12 holes outnumber the East's six on Royal Melbourne's famous 'Composite' Course that hosts Presidents Cups and other major tournaments. The terrain is wonderfully hilly with the perplexing green surrounds and the bunkers the biggest defense. The vertical edges of the bunkers can be a foot or taller, meaning only a crisp, dedicated strike will escape. Most holes dogleg one way or the other. Only the proper angles will provide the opportunity to score well. If you can't control your ball, you're in trouble.

Played as a guest of a long time member, very warm and friendly reception. Practice range closed but they had nets set up for a warm up. A beautiful Mackenzie track with typically gorgeous almost distracting bunkering. Truly a sight to be seen. Of all the fantastic courses I played in Australia this is the one not to be missed. Four months later I am still in awe of this golf course.

I'll leave the superlatives to the other proper golf writers. All that they write about RMGC west is true. It's a beautiful layout through suburban Melbourne.

I'll point out some of the quirks to the course. I was a 8 handicap at the time and we pretty much played off the back tees - it's interesting to note that for the most part, there is not much more room for RMGC to lengthen ('Tiger' proof their course). I shot a very solid 82 in perfect conditions and only struggled with some of the breaks on the greens. It was an odd day where I would hole 8-12 foot putts for par but miss the 3 foot putts for birdie/par. The greens are the finest and truest rolling I have played on which made my score even more disappointing.

The caddie was friendly but gave pretty poor reads on the greens sadly. On the 18th I also hit what turned out to be a perfect drive over the left hand bunker. His exact words were - "that might be out of bounds". Strange.

The course is surprisingly wide off the tee, so it's the greens and bunkers that protect the course. You've also got to cross public roads to get to continue your round.

When I was there the proper driving range was closed but there were nets to hit long irons into and a short game area where you could hit 100 yard approach shots.

The bar was nice.

Ultimately it was a great experience, I paid around $350 for the experience as an overseas introduction. Having played plenty of golf, this represents fair value.