23-573: 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. Metropolitan Golf Club shares its origins with Royal Melbourne Golf Club, which was founded in 1891 as Melbourne Golf Club, with
46-408: A school, with replacement holes designed by Dick Wilson being built on adjacent land. 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
69-532: A strong field that included Arnold Palmer , Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player . In 1979, Jack Newton won the Australian Open at Metropolitan by one stroke from a young Greg Norman , who three-putted the final green. The Australian Open returned in 1986, with Rodger Davis celebrating a popular win, in 1993, when American Brad Faxon triumphed with a four-round score of 275 (13 under par), and in 1997, when English Ryder Cup star Lee Westwood defeated Norman on
92-506: Is a region in southeastern Melbourne , Australia, known for its sandy soil. Several significant golf courses are located in the region. The Melbourne Sandbelt is a rough triangle extending from Brighton south along the coast of Port Phillip Bay to Frankston and to the east as far as Clayton and Springvale . Much of Melbourne's eastern suburbs are covered by heavy clay subsoil. Around 20 million years ago, lower lying areas were flooded, which deposited sandstone material, now known as
115-515: Is that bunkers are cut right on the edge of a green , which is not possible in other courses with different soil types. There are several major championship courses in the Melbourne Sandbelt which are regularly listed among the world's best. Notable courses include Royal Melbourne Golf Club , Victoria Golf Club , Kingston Heath Golf Club , Huntingdale Golf Club , and Metropolitan Golf Club . Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath both feature in
138-526: 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
161-618: The Golf Digest top 20 courses in the world. Women%27s Australian Open The Women's Australian Open is a women's professional golf tournament played in Australia , operated by Golf Australia and the WPGA Tour of Australasia , long co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour (LET). Beginning with the 2012 event, it is also co-sanctioned by the U.S.-based LPGA Tour . In 2008, it
184-630: The 1999 calendar year. The 2012 tournament was played at the Composite Course at Royal Melbourne , the championship course comprising 12 holes from the West course and six from the East course. The Composite Course is considered one of the top courses in the world, and was used for the Presidents Cup competitions in 1998 and 2011 . Through 2011, a women's professional competition had never been held on it;
207-539: The 2004 event, sponsorship difficulties caused the tournament to stop once again, but after a two-year hiatus the tournament returned in 2007. The Women's Australian Open usually moves between various courses around Australia, except from 1995 through 2002 when it was held at the Yarra Yarra Golf Club in Melbourne . The 2008 event was held at Kingston Heath Golf Club . For several years after its return in 1994,
230-535: The 2012 Women's Australian Open was the first. The event was won by Jessica Korda after an historic six-player playoff, only the second in ALPG history. Korda holed a 25-foot (8 m) birdie putt on the second playoff hole to claim her first LPGA Tour victory. In 2013, the tournament moved to Royal Canberra Golf Club , and in 2014 to the Victoria Golf Club near Melbourne. In 2016 the event moved to Adelaide and
253-630: The 36-hole final the next day in losing to American Steve Stricker 2 & 1. In February 2009, Metropolitan hosted the Women's Australian Open , which marked 100 years of play on the course at Oakleigh . The event was won by England's Laura Davies Metropolitan hosted the World Cup in November 2018. 37°54′43″S 145°05′25″E / 37.9119°S 145.0902°E / -37.9119; 145.0902 Melbourne Sandbelt The Melbourne Sandbelt
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#1732863157804276-621: The Brighton Group. The Sandbelt suburbs are built on remnant sand dunes from this time. The sand can reach a depth of 80 metres in some places. Further east and north, the clay remains, and this region is sometimes referred to as the Clay Belt by contrast to the Sandbelt. The surface soils across the Sandbelt today are the result of the geology, topography, marine currents, climate and vegetation. The present-day coastal dune systems were formed in
299-621: The Royal title being granted in 1895. When the original course at Caulfield was turned over to housing, Royal Melbourne moved to a new course at Sandringham . Members who remained formed the Caulfield Golf Club, and in 1906 purchased a farm in Oakleigh with a two-storey house. In 1908 they moved to the new course, designed by club member J B MacKenzie, renaming their club as The Metropolitan Golf Club. In 1960, several holes were lost in order to build
322-410: The Sandbelt region since the 1880s. Several former sand mining sites have been used for landfill waste disposal once mining ceased. Sandy soil is particularly suitable for golf courses. It is easy to place bunkers wherever a course designer chooses, without the need to carry in sand from another location, and it is easy to ensure appropriate drainage. A feature of several Melbourne Sandbelt courses
345-635: The Women's Australian Open was played early in the ALPG schedule, usually in November. Starting in 2000, it was changed to be played at the end of the schedule in February near the ANZ Ladies Masters , to allow both tournaments to be part of the Ladies European Tour. Since the Women's Australian Open was played from 12 to 15 November 1998 during the 1998/1999 ALPG season, it was therefore not played during
368-644: The fourth hole of a sudden-death playoff after Norman once again three-putted the final green. In addition to the Australian Open (7 times) and the Australian PGA Championship (5 times), Metropolitan has hosted many other elite professional and amateur tournaments, including the Australian Amateur (5 times) and the Victorian Open , for which it was the regular venue in the early 1980s. Metropolitan celebrated its centenary year in 2001 and hosted
391-516: The last 6000 years by wave action depositing sand and silts from the bay onto its beaches. The most prominent dune systems are between Mordialloc and Frankston . This formed a coastal barrier, behind which occurs the Carrum Carrum Swamp in a section of the Port-Phillip sunkland. Currently, the Sandbelt region has been impacted by extensive suburb growth , and there are few locations where
414-668: The multi-coloured rainbow lorikeet . The Metropolitan hosted the Kirk-Windeyer Cup in 1929, the Australian Open in 1930, and the Melbourne Centenary Open in 1934. The Australian Open returned in 1934 when it was won by Gene Sarazen , and again in 1951, when Peter Thomson was victorious. In 1968, Metropolitan hosted the Australian PGA Championship ; the tournament was won by Kel Nagle , who defeated
437-425: The remnant vegetation has been preserved. Revegetation efforts by local councils are ongoing, and seek to return the land back to the remnant vegetation (prior to European settlement). To help achieve this, various vegetation communities have been identified. The following table presents the different vegetation communities of the Sandbelt, along with a list of associated species. Sand mining has been conducted in
460-443: 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
483-412: Was founded in 1974 as a 54-hole event, but folded after 1978. It was resurrected in 1994 as the Women's Australian Open, this time as a 72-hole event. Annika Sörenstam won that year, which was her first professional win. It was also Karrie Webb 's professional debut, and she would later win the event five times. Starting in 2000, the Ladies European Tour began co-sanctioning the tournament. Following
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#1732863157804506-611: Was played there until 2020. In 2021, it was not played due to the COVID-19 pandemic . In 2022, the tournament was played at Victoria Golf Club and Kingston Heath Golf Club . In a world-first for golf, the ISPS Handa Australian Open brought together the national men's and women's Open events, along with the All Abilities Championship. The men's Open and the women's Open had equal prize money of A$ 1,700,000 as
529-624: Was the second-richest women's golf tournament on the ALPG Tour, with a prize fund of A$ 500,000, and was raised to A$ 600,000 in 2010. With the co-sanctioning by the LPGA, the total purse was nearly doubled, and was also fixed in U.S. dollars . The purse was US$ 1.1 million in 2012, and increased again to its current level of US$ 1.2 million for 2013. Since 2011, the tournament's name has been the ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open . The Australian Ladies Open
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