Let me say up front what this list is and isn't. It isn't a beauty contest, and it isn't about clubhouses or member lists. I rank a Sandbelt course on one thing: the quality of the questions it asks you between the tee and the hole. The genius of this little patch of sandy soil south-east of Melbourne — the Sandbelt — is that the great architects who shaped it, MacKenzie chief among them, built courses that punish the thoughtless and reward the player who can plot. Length barely matters here. Angles are everything. These are the eighteen — well, sixteen, plus a few you should know about — that ask the best questions. You'll find every one of them in our Melbourne Sandbelt directory.
The quick ranking: 1. Royal Melbourne (West) · 2. Kingston Heath · 3. Victoria · 4. Royal Melbourne (East) · 5. Metropolitan · 6. Peninsula Kingswood · 7. Commonwealth · 8. Woodlands · 9. Yarra Yarra · 10. Huntingdale · 11. Spring Valley · 12. Southern · 13. Capital · 14. Keysborough · 15. Sandringham (Sandy) · 16. Cheltenham.
1. Royal Melbourne — West Course
The best golf course in Australia, and it isn't an argument. Alister MacKenzie's 1926 masterpiece on the West is a clinic in strategic design: huge greens that feed you toward trouble, bunkers placed exactly where your eye wants to aim, and short par 4s that wreck more good rounds than any 460-metre brute ever will. Play it once and you'll understand every other course on this list a little better.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Alister MacKenzie (1926) · Don't miss: the drivable 10th — a lesson in temptation.
2. Kingston Heath
A lot of good judges — me among them on a given day — think Kingston Heath is the best-conditioned, best-bunkered course in the country. Dan Soutar set the routing in 1925; MacKenzie drew the bunkers, and they remain the finest set of hazards in Australia. Not long, immaculately presented, and relentlessly strategic. The par-3 15th is, hole-for-hole, the best short hole in the land.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Soutar/MacKenzie (1925) · Don't miss: the 15th, a short par 3 with no safe miss.
3. Victoria Golf Club
Peter Thomson's old home club, and a course that flies under the radar only because of its postcode. Victoria is pure Sandbelt — firm, fast, and fiendishly bunkered — sitting directly across the road from Royal Melbourne. The greens are some of the quickest in Melbourne and the short par 4s are a constant negotiation between your ego and the card.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Oscar Damman / MacKenzie influence · Don't miss: the short par-4 stretch on the back nine.
4. Royal Melbourne — East Course
Alex Russell's East Course would be the headline act at any other club; here it lives in the West's shadow, which is a disservice. Six of its holes form part of the famous Composite Course. Quieter and a touch more forgiving than the West, but every bit as clever where it counts.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Alex Russell (1932) · Don't miss: the par-3 16th, a true Sandbelt postcard.
5. The Metropolitan Golf Club
If you like your golf immaculate, Metropolitan is your church. Arguably the best turf in Australia — fairways like carpet, greens like glass — wrapped around a tree-lined routing that demands precision off the tee. Less quirk than the Royal Melbourne courses, more relentless examination.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: J.B. Mackenzie / club evolution · Don't miss: the conditioning. You won't see better.
6. Peninsula Kingswood
The 2017 merger of Peninsula and Kingswood gave Melbourne a 36-hole giant, and the OCM redesign of both Peninsula Kingswood courses has them firmly in the national top 20. Big, bold, modern Sandbelt golf with the budget to match. The North in particular is a brute that still rewards brains over brawn.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: OCM redesign · Don't miss: the remodelled North Course.
7. The Commonwealth Golf Club
Commonwealth jumped nine places in the most recent national ranking after a Doak-led renovation, and deservedly so. It was always a strong, sneaky-hard members' course; now it's a genuine destination. The angles into the greens are as demanding as anything on the belt.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Sloan Morpeth, renovated by Tom Doak's team · Don't miss: the rebuilt green complexes.
8. Woodlands Golf Club
The connoisseur's pick. Woodlands is a sandbelt-in-miniature — not long, not famous, but boasting bunkering so good that architects make pilgrimages to study it. If you want to understand why the Sandbelt is special and you can only play one of the lesser-known clubs, make it this one.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: S. Bennett / sandbelt classic · Don't miss: the bunkering — the best you've never heard of.
9. Yarra Yarra Golf Club
Yarra Yarra carries strong MacKenzie influence and one of the most photographed par 3s in the country — a brutish long one ringed by sand. A proper, traditional Sandbelt members' course that asks honest questions all the way round.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: MacKenzie influence · Don't miss: the long par-3 11th.
10. Huntingdale Golf Club
For decades Huntingdale hosted the Australian Masters, and it plays like a tournament course: longer and more demanding off the tee than its neighbours, with a C.H. Alison flavour to the bunkering. Less subtle than the very best here, but a serious test.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: C.H. Alison influence · Don't miss: the closing stretch — it has decided big tournaments.
11. Spring Valley Golf Club
A genuinely underrated members' course, Spring Valley has quietly improved for years and offers as pure a Sandbelt surface as anywhere outside the top tier. Firm, fair, and far better than its profile suggests.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Sandbelt classic · Don't miss: the back-nine par 4s.
12. Southern Golf Club
The best news on this list for the rest of us: Southern returned to the national top 100 after a twelve-year absence — and it's public. Genuine Sandbelt turf and bunkering that you can actually book a tee time on. If you want the experience without a member's invitation, start here.
Access: Public · Designer: Sandbelt classic, restored · Don't miss: that you can just play it.
13. Capital Golf Club
The most exclusive address on the belt. Capital — a Peter Thomson/Lloyd Williams creation — is a manicured, ultra-private experience you'll likely only see if you know the right person. As a piece of design it's bold and beautifully kept; as a round, it's a unicorn.
Access: Private (very limited) · Designer: Thomson Wolveridge · Don't miss: the chance, if it ever comes.
14. Keysborough Golf Course
A solid, honest members' club on the outer edge of the belt, Keysborough doesn't get the headlines but delivers proper sandy-soil golf at a friendlier pitch than its blue-blood neighbours.
Access: Private (members & guests) · Designer: Sandbelt parkland · Don't miss: the value relative to the postcode.
15. Sandringham (Sandy Golf Links)
The public jewel. Reborn in 2020 as a Mike Cocking/Geoff Ogilvy design, Sandringham — now Sandy Golf Links — delivers firm greens, fiendish short holes and real Sandbelt bunkering for about forty bucks. The best-value introduction to this style of golf there is.
Access: Public (~$43) · Designer: OCM / Ogilvy (2020) · Don't miss: the short par 3s — pure Sandbelt.
16. Cheltenham Golf Club
A friendly, walkable public course in the heart of the belt, Cheltenham won't trouble the world rankings but gives you sandy turf and a relaxed welcome — a fine spot to learn what firm-and-fast golf actually feels like.
Access: Public · Designer: Sandbelt municipal · Don't miss: an easy, low-pressure first taste of the belt.
Honourable mentions
A few more worth your time: Sandhurst (public, two Thomson-designed courses), Spring Park (a charming public nine), and the sandbelt-flavoured outliers beyond Melbourne — Kooyonga in Adelaide and Bonnie Doon in Sydney both carry the sandy-soil DNA and rank highly in their own right.
How I ranked them
No algorithm, no points sheet — thirty years of playing, teaching and caddying on this sand, weighed against the one question that matters: how good are the decisions each course forces you to make? I leaned on strategic merit and shot-values first, conditioning second, and prestige a distant third. Where the experts and I disagree, I've backed my own eyes. The national panels (Golf Australia, Australian Golf Digest) broadly agree on the top handful; the order gets personal after that, and so does mine.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Sandbelt golf course? Royal Melbourne's West Course, ranked number one in Australia. Kingston Heath runs it desperately close and some judges have it first.
Can the public play the Sandbelt? Yes — most of the famous clubs are private (members and guests), but Southern, Cheltenham, Sandhurst, Spring Park and Sandy Golf Links (Sandringham) are all public, and the private clubs can be accessed via a golf-tour package or a club with reciprocal rights.
Where is the Melbourne Sandbelt? A band of sandy soil through Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs — Black Rock, Cheltenham, Oakleigh South and surrounds — about 30 minutes from the CBD.
So that's my sixteen. Argue with the order all you like — that's half the fun of a list like this. But play even three or four of them and you'll come away understanding what the rest of the golfing world is missing. The card doesn't ask how. On the Sandbelt, it asks how well you think.
Dale "Macca" McGregor is a PGA Professional and former tour player who has spent two decades teaching golfers to think their way around the Melbourne Sandbelt. He still believes the best shot in golf is the one nobody claps for.
