[Photos: Gary Lisbon]
Golf Australia righted a glaring wrong by taking last year’s men’s Australian Open to Royal Melbourne Golf Club, snapping a 34-year absence that boggled the minds of many golfers.
The governing body’s latest move with the national championship comes from a different page within the same playbook, with Peninsula Kingswood Country Golf Club awarded the 2027 Capital.com Australian Open in a decision that will have a wider impact than many golfers perhaps realise.
RELATED: Victoria locks in Sandbelt as Australian Open home through 2030
Peninsula Kingswood came closer to securing hosting rights for the 2028 Presidents Cup than most people are aware, the club’s lack of previous tournament history working against it as the PGA Tour instead opted for Kingston Heath.
The choice didn’t sit well with the membership at “PK”, who have known for several years since the OCCM-redesign of their two courses that they are in the same class as their Melbourne Sandbelt brethren.
The club has long held an appetite for staging tournaments (the previous iteration, before the Kingswood merger, saw the Peninsula courses as a regular host of the PGA Tour of Australasia’s qualifying school). With the step up in calibre of golf courses and facilities should have come a step up in the calibre of tournaments staged there.
Yet it hasn’t happened.
PK has long held talks with Golf Australia about hosting the Australian Open, dating back to 2018, says club chief executive Heath Wilson. Pre-existing contracts reduced the possible openings for several years, but also hurting the club was a general reluctance from the golf industry to venture that far from the Melbourne CBD with the championship. Questions also arose about parking and proximity to train lines, and despite efforts by the club to alleviate doubts in all instances, still no championship came PK’s way.
“We were so close to getting the Presidents Cup in ’28,” Wilson says. “We’ve done so much work on what the place would look like and how the course can be set up. Obviously, Presidents Cup setups are going to be different to an Australian Open, but we had all the car-parking and infrastructure and the composite course done for that… I suppose we had three-quarters of the [logistical and behind-the-scenes tournament preparation] work done.”
• • •
Peninsula Kingswood sits in that quasi-suburban edge of Melbourne that makes it not quite city, not quite Mornington Peninsula – although you could simultaneously argue it is neither and both.
Also still in the memories of some long-time GA staff would be the 2003 and 2005 Australian Opens at Moonah Links, which was billed as a regular home for the championship yet amounted to only two after logistical issues and lacklustre crowd support, largely stemming from its Mornington Peninsula location.
RELATED: An Australian Open at Peninsula Kingswood is long overdue – and will work
Yet PK persisted. The club pre-empted logistical issues and solved them while devising various configurations of its courses to create 18-hole options taking into account all requirements – including a Presidents Cup routing with the 15th and 16th holes near the clubhouse, given that statistically that’s where most matches finish. All versions catered for tournament infrastructure and gallery movement, while showcasing the best holes.
That last part, it should be noted, was not difficult – there’s scarcely a bad hole on the property. Instead, the task became: which holes to leave out?
Giving PK a ‘test run’ with the Webex Players Series event next January will only enhance next year’s Australian Open, as it will allow the club, Golf Australia and the PGA Tour of Australasia a chance to refine anything that doesn’t quite hit the mark.
As for the club finally getting their wish, Wilson says it came down to regular communication.
“It was just a constant dialogue with Golf Australia over the years about trying to be a host for the Australian Open, and I suppose getting a bit of feedback on what we needed to do or had to do, and one of those things was to try to host another event before it,” he says.
The Webex tournament could prove to be a vital cog in the wheel. The layout for the mixed event will include nine holes from both courses and if all goes well in January, we can expect to see the same configuration of holes used next December.
It wasn’t orchestrated that way, yet there’s a neat synergy to the even split.
“We play a composite-course week for our members every year,” Wilson says. “We’re pretty confident the one that we’re working on with GA right now is a great composite – basically nine holes from the South, nine holes from the North.
“That’s the intent. I suppose it’s really up to Golf Australia to that end, but the intent is to trial the composite course. There could be one or two changes, but I wouldn’t think so.”
RELATED: Course Flyover – Peninsula Kingswood Country Golf Club
From a crowd-movement standpoint, the club won’t be able to use its front entrance for the Australian Open, although that is not uncommon for all golf clubs hosting large tournaments. Instead, public access will be via other purpose-built entrances along the boundaries.
Wilson says Frankston City Council has been hugely supportive of the tournament and is working closely with the club on providing public car-parking options. For train-goers, Kananook Station is 1.7 kilometres from the gate – closer than the train line is to most Sandbelt courses that host the national championship. The out-of-play holes will also come in handy for tournament infrastructure and VIP parking, just like at Royal Melbourne.
Meanwhile, the other key element of hosting a tournament – club members – are largely embracing the opportunity ahead of them. Wilson says the mood within the club since the announcement on June 15 has been one of excitement tinged with relief.
“Overall, it’s gone down really well. The feedback we’ve had across the membership, through emails and general chat, and when you see them after the announcement, they’re generally excited,” Wilson says. “There are some sections of the membership who don’t want it, which is fair enough – you’ll have a couple of weeks of pain, I suppose – but overall the membership has been really excited. And really relieved that we’re actually going to host an Australian Open and we’re seen as good enough to do it.”
