[Photo: Gary Lisbon]
This morning’s announcement that next year’s Australian Open will be contested at Peninsula Kingswood Country Golf Club is news that ought to resonate strongly across golf – and not just here, but worldwide.
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The golf courses of the Melbourne Sandbelt are well-known to golf fans across Australia and own some recognition globally, although in many instances that’s limited to a few tournament venues where television broadcasts and social media posts have helped boost awareness during big events. Yet it’s a list from which Peninsula Kingswood has largely been missing.
The members at “PK”, as it is universally known, have long wanted a tournament to showcase their two excellent golf courses, ranked fifth (North) and 15th (South) in the country by Australian Golf Digest. Potential composite routings have been devised for years to accommodate tournament infrastructure that would see play weave comfortably across holes from both courses.
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This writer felt the club would have been a perfect venue for the concurrently held Australian Opens, as spectators could have watched all the action without needing to travel to a different site.
Which is why today’s announcement is a welcome one. As the first new Australian Open venue since New South Wales Golf Club’s lone staging in 2009, Peninsula Kingswood will make for a fantastic Open host and will showcase at least 18 of its 36 holes to a new audience.
Why is that important? There are golfers from overseas who make pilgrimages to Melbourne yet don’t play at PK because they didn’t know it was there. That has hurt the club, and the Sandbelt more broadly, in ways golfers might not realise.
Peninsula Kingswood was very close to securing the 2028 Presidents Cup, but the players’ collective lack of awareness of PK saw them more in favour of going to Kingston Heath, which is where (and why) the biennial event wound up going to “The Heath”.
It will be a great event for a richly deserving Kingston Heath, of course, but for PK to miss out partly due to a lack of familiarity feels like an unfair snub.
Domestically, the hesitation from tournament organisers to date appears to have been PK’s location, which either is or isn’t part of Melbourne depending on who you ask. Its base in unfashionable Frankston is hardly a bonus on the demographic front, but it’s not the detractor some snobs perhaps think. Plenty of good golf courses are found in supposedly insalubrious areas.
While a little further from the CBD than is perhaps ideal, PK’s location will help draw crowds from the suburbs as well as the ever-popular and golf-rich Mornington Peninsula. Meanwhile, the travel logistics for those opting not to drive aren’t as cumbersome as they might seem.
Australian Golf Digest has learned of a story relating to a site visit made by Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland during which he expressed concern from a crowd-movement perspective about the distance to the nearest train station. Then it was pointed out to Sutherland that Kananook Station is closer to PK than either Cheltenham or Sandringham stations are to Royal Melbourne Golf Club, which went on to host a memorable 2025 Australian Open.
This morning’s announcement also includes confirmed Victorian stops for the national championship in 2029 and 2030. My guess is one of those will be a return fixture at PK once Golf Australia, the PGA Tour of Australasia and their co-sanctioning and commercial partners realise what they’ve hit upon.
