Moonah Links Open Course

The verdict

The Open Course at Moonah Links is a championship test in the truest sense, a links Peter Thomson and his partners Michael Wolveridge and Ross Perrett carved out of the sandy country at Fingal with the express purpose of hosting the Australian Open. It is the only course in the country built for that job, and it shows. From the championship markers it stretches to about 6,829 metres, close to 7,468 yards, and Thomson, who won the Open five times, called it The Leviathan. This is a course that wants to find out how good you really are.

For the visiting golfer it offers something rare, the chance to play a genuine national Open venue as a public resort course, and to feel the difference width, length and clever bunkering make when a layout is set up for the very best. There is no water and little tree cover, just dunes, fescue, more than eighty bunkers and big, heavily shaped greens, so the wind off Bass Strait is the main defense. Pair it with the gentler sister Legends Course and the great Mornington Peninsula links nearby and you have one of the most complete golf bases within an hour of Melbourne.

The holes worth the trip

The character of the Open Course is set early by the par 3 fifth, the most photographed hole on the property, played to an elevated green guarded by an enormous bunker on the right that swallows anything pushed or held up in the breeze. It is an intimidating one shot hole on a course full of them, and a reminder that on a Thomson links the short holes are rarely the soft option.

The toughest test arrives at the par 4 sixth, which runs about 449 metres along a valley between dunes left and right and, remarkably, carries no sand at all. It does not need any. When the wind gets up off Bass Strait it becomes a genuine brute, a hole where two of your best are barely enough. The long par 4 eighth, stretching toward 468 yards from the tips to another raised green, keeps the pressure on through the front nine.

The closing par 5 eighteenth is a fitting finish, a 582 metre monster framed by eleven bunkers and a natural amphitheatre below the clubhouse, exactly the sort of grandstand finish a national Open demands. Add the blind shots, the heavily contoured greens and the pot bunkers hidden in the middle of fairways, and you have a layout that rewards length, nerve and a low, controlled ball flight far more than it forgives the loose one.

Where to stay nearby

The easiest base is the resort on site, Peppers Moonah Links Resort, whose rooms look out over the Open Course first fairway and which builds stay and play packages across both layouts. Waking up beside a national Open venue, with breakfast and the first tee a short walk apart, is hard to beat for a golf focused few days on the Peninsula.

Beyond the resort, the Mornington Peninsula is one of the best golf and food regions in the country, with the towns of Rye, Sorrento and Portsea close by for restaurants, beaches and the local wineries. It is the perfect region to build a multi course trip around, pairing Moonah Links with St Andrews Beach, the three layouts at The National and Portsea, all within a short drive.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts near Moonah Links.