Golfing in Victoria

Likened to coastal Scotland Ireland, Victoria’s diverse geography offers unique golf course settings from river front to mountain and sandy soil to seaside.

You might choose to visit Victoria for its amazing natural beauty, its history, or the state's wealth of major sporting, fashion and cultural events. You may also be looking forward to sampling Melbourne's cafes and cosmopolitan lifestyle.

More than any of this, you may be just waiting to hear the thwack of club on ball, the rattle of a putt finding the hole. If so, then welcome to Victoria, Australia's number one golf state: from border to border, from tee to green.

Pack your clubs and discover one of the world's finest golfing destinations. With five of Australia's top 10 golf courses, Victoriahas long been regarded as the place for golf lovers to experience the very best of their sport. Visitors can play quality, world-class courses designed by renowned architects, or join the galleries and watch the greatest stars in the game compete in stunning surroundings at international tournaments, including the Heineken Classic, Australian Open and Australian Masters.

There's no shortage of opportunities to play in Victoria, as there are nearly 400 public and private golf courses throughout the state - including 210 courses within 90 minutes of Melbourne. And golf is growing in Victoria, with eight new golf courses added in the last two years and another 14 planned to open within the next two to three years. The courses are diverse and challenging from the traditional championship layouts of the Melbourne sand belt, to the classic links layouts of the Mornington Peninsula, the quirky sand-scrape greens of the state's north-west, and Melbourne's many suburban courses.

Melbourne
Four of Australia's top 10 courses are situated in Melbourne's south-east 'sand belt' corridor. These courses are recognised in Australia and internationally as among the finest in the world. The gem of the sand belt is Royal Melbourne, rated as Australia's number one, among the top 10 courses in the world and designed by the great golf architect, Alister Mackenzie.

Regional Victoria
Victoria's natural attributes - river frontage, sandy soils and seaside cliff tops - make it the perfect golf course environment. The natural coastal topography is ideal for links-style layouts and is often likened to the coastal areas of Scotland and Ireland. A number of new courses designed by leading international designers - primarily residential and resort developments within a 90-minute drive of Melbourne - have been built over the past five years, adding to an already impressive list of regional golfing destinations.