Metropolitan Golf Club

Metropolitan Golf Club

Club information
Location	South Oakleigh, Victoria, Australia
Established	1908
Type	Private
Total holes	18
Events hosted	Australian Open Australian PGA Championship Australian Masters Victorian Open Women's Australian Open Australian Amateur Australian Women's Amateur
Website	www.metropolitangolf.com.au
Par	72
Length	6,556 metres (7,170 yd)
Course rating	74.0
Slope rating	131

The Metropolitan Golf Club is one of the renowned sandbelt courses of Melbourne and is widely recognised as one of the finest championship courses in Australia. It is located in Oakleigh South, in the city's south-eastern suburbs, approximately twenty minutes' drive from the CBD.

History

Metropolitan shared a common origin with Royal Melbourne in 1891 as the Melbourne Golf Club, the Royal title was granted in 1895.

The original links at Malvern were engulfed by housing so in 1901 many members moved nearer to Port Phillip Bay to the present Royal Melbourne course. Those who remained formed the Caulfield Golf Club and in 1906 purchased a farm in Oakleigh with a two-storey house. In 1908 the members moved to the new course and began play as The Metropolitan Golf Club.

Designed by engineer member J B MacKenzie, the farmland was transformed by the establishment of magnificent plantations of Australian native trees and shrubs and has the most famous specimen of red flowering gum (Corymbia ficifolia) in Australia. This huge tree, magnificent in bloom in February and well over 100 years old, is the Club emblem with the winged golf ball.

The flora at Metropolitan Golf Club attracts many different species of native birds.

Over the years the course has moved with the demands of the times and staged its first Australian Open in 1930 after modifications suggested by golf course architect Alister MacKenzie in 1926. The Victorian Centenary Open was here in 1934 and Gene Sarazen won the Australian Open at Metropolitan in 1936. Sarazen included the 14th hole as one of his world favorites.

Sadly this hole, with some others, was lost in 1960 when land was taken from the Club for school development.

American architect Dick Wilson designed a series of new holes on adjacent land, and it is now hard to pick old from new.

The course has continually challenged the best players in the world. Peter Thomson began his brilliant career with a win here in the 1951 Australian Open. In 1968 the Australian PGA Championship was won by Kel Nagle, who defeated a strong field that included Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. Jack Newton won the 1979 Australian Open by one shot from a young Greg Norman, who three-putted the final green.

For many years in the early 1980s, the Club was the regular venue for the Victorian Open, but the Australian Open returned in 1986 with Rodger Davis celebrating a popular win. American Brad Faxon mastered Metropolitan in the 1993 Australian Open with a four-round score of 275, 13 under par.

The most recent occasion Metropolitan hosted the Australian Open was in 1997 after the course had been lengthened and re-bunkered. English Ryder Cup star Lee Westwood defeated Greg Norman on the fourth hole of a sudden-death playoff, after Norman once again three-putted the final green.

In total over the years the Club has hosted seven Australian Opens, five Australian PGA Championships, ten other professional tournaments and in 2001 hosted the Australian Amateur for the fifth time.

Course

Metropolitan enjoys a reputation as one of the best conditioned year-round courses in Australia. Prior to the 1997 Australian Open, Greg Norman described Metropolitan's pure couch grass fairways as the best he had played on anywhere in the world. During the 2001 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, a number of the world's top-ranked players compared the condition of the course to Augusta National. The bentgrass greens are large, firm and fast and are hand-mown right to the edge of the greenside bunkers. In total, there are 103 bunkers on the course and almost every hole is flanked by huge stands of Australian native trees which provide sanctuary to many species of native birds, including the noisy but beautiful sulphur-crested cockatoo and the multi-coloured rainbow lorikeet.

World Match Play Championship

Metropolitan celebrated its centenary year in 2001 and hosted the 2001 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in the first week of January. Sixty-four of the highest ranked golfers in the world competed in elimination format for US$5 million and the Walter Hagen Cup, on the course Hagen described in 1930 as "by far the finest course I have played in Australia".

Pre-tournament favorite and world number 2 Ernie Els was knocked out in the semi-final by little known Swede Pierre Fulke, who couldn't repeat his effort in the 36-hole final the next day in losing to American Steve Stricker 2 & 1.

2005–present

Some changes were made to the course in the summer of 2005/06 with holes 12, 13 and 14 being dramatically changed and modifications made to holes 2, 4, 6, 7, 15, and 16. These changes have been designed by Michael Clayton Golf Design and the changed holes are now in play.

In February 2009, the Club hosted the Women's Australian Open, which marked 100 years of play on the course at Oakleigh. The event was a great success and was won by England's Laura Davies

The club hosted the World Cup in November 2018.

Tournament history

Year	Tournament	Winner	Country (State)
1930	Australian Open	Frank Eyre	New South Wales
1930	Australian PGA Championship	Jock Robertson	New South Wales
1930	Australian Amateur	Harry Hattersley	New South Wales
1934	Melbourne Centenary Tournament	Jimmy Thomson	United States
1936	Australian Open	Gene Sarazen	United States
1936	Australian PGA Championship	Bill Clifford	Victoria
1936	Australian Amateur	Jim Ferrier	New South Wales
1937	Australian Women's Amateur	B. Kernot	Victoria
1948	Australian Amateur	Doug Bachli	Victoria
1951	Australian Open	Peter Thomson	Victoria
1951	Australian PGA Championship	Norman Von Nida	New South Wales
1960	Victorian Open	Jack Harris	Victoria
1967	Australian PGA Championship	Peter Thomson	Victoria
1968	Australian PGA Championship	Kel Nagle	New South Wales
1971	Australian Amateur	Randall Hicks	Victoria
1973	Australian Women's Amateur	Maisie Mooney	Ireland
1975	Victorian Open	Stewart Ginn	Victoria
1978	Victorian Open	Guy Wolstenholme	England
1979	Australian Open	Jack Newton	New South Wales
1980	Victorian Open	Guy Wolstenholme	England
1981	Victorian Open	Bill Dunk	New South Wales
1982	Victorian Open	Michael Clayton	Victoria
1983	Victorian Open	Bob Shearer	Victoria
1984	Victorian Open	Greg Norman	Queensland
1986	Australian Open	Rodger Davis	New South Wales
1993	Australian Open	Brad Faxon	United States
1997	Australian Open	Lee Westwood	England
2001	WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship	Steve Stricker	United States
2001	Australian Amateur	Andrew Buckle	Queensland
2001	Australian Women's Amateur	Helen Beatty	Western Australia
2009	Women's Australian Open	Laura Davies	England
2014	Australian Masters	Nick Cullen	South Australia
2016	Australian Amateur	Connor Syme	Scotland
2016	Australian Women's Amateur	Park Min-ji	South Korea
2018	World Cup	Belgium

External links

• Official website