This trip includes games at 5 courses commonly agreed to be in the top 10 in Australia and in the mix for top 50 in the world.  It is generally agreed that Royal Melbourne West is the best course in Australia but several people I had met over the past couple of weeks had told me that, in their opinion, Kingston Heath was, in fact, better.  I was very fortunate to be playing at KH, since the World Cup of golf is being played there next week.  Indeed, as I arrived at the club I was met by the sight of fairly advanced preparations for a top level tournament.  Stands were built, hospitality tents constructed and all the other paraphenalia of a major sporting event was in place.

I had played with my host, Rich, at Hobart on Saturday.  He has won the KH club championship 10 times over 23 years, most recently earlier this year and plays off +3.  He had, over the weekend, amused us all with tales of competing in the Australian Amateur at Royal Hobart.  He was the perfect man to show me KH and how to play it.  I, meanwhile, had had less than 5 hours sleep and an awfully long day yesterday and, sadly, it showed in my game.

There is always a danger when playing a course that you have very high expectations of that you will be disappointed, even if it is very good.  I had those very high expectations of KH and was, consequently, slightly anxious that I would feel a little let down.  (In contrast, it occurred to me that before playing NSW I was so aware of the criticisms thrown its way that my expectations were lower than they would normally be for such a great course and consequently was blown away).

I need not have worried.  KH is simply a masterpiece.  Originally designed by Dan Soutar it was visited in 1926 by Alistair Mackenzie, who provided a bunkering scheme but left it pretty much alone aside from that.  It is (much like the Old Course at St Andrews and Muirfield in Scotland) on what is basically a flat sight with some relatively small scale undulation.  I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that land like this is the perfect land for a golf course.  On virtually every shot at KH, the golfer needs to think hard about where to play to to provide the easiest next shot.  Every green has a prefrred angle to approach it from, nearly always determined by where the hole has been put that day.  The fairways and greens are firm, the fairways kept short, giving wonderfully tight lies and the greens are fast.  On nearly every green being above the hole is a very bad place to be!  I drove the ball reasonably but my iron game wasn’t great, so I visited many bunkers.  The greyish sand in these was firm and a great consistency to play from.

Rich shot something like a level par 72, a couple of shots worse than handicap but demonstrated why he has competed so well around this course.  Many excellent golfers are more than a little self obsessed when on the course, that could not be less true of Rich, who I had been told in advance was one of life’s top blokes.  He was great company and was able to tell me things about the course that I would never had realised on one play on my own.  I will look forward intently to seeing top professionals play the course next week.  Having played some of the less than stellar courses the professional game visits Kingston Heath should be a serious test for them.

After the game Rich showed me around the (for Australia) relatively modest clubhouse, including the wide painting commissioned by the club of the clubhouse setting, with each of the male and female professional golfers who had won at KH, other notable individuals in the club’s history (such as Mackenzie) and a handful of the club’s great champions, including him.  After a beer and a sandwich, I bought a couple of mementos from the pro-shop and bid a sad fairwell to Kingston Heath, a club and course of which I had had very high expectations and which managed to exceed them.  If Royal Melbourne West (where I’m playing tomorrow) is as good, let alone better, than I am due another real treat then.

*Having promised that I wouldn’t forget my camera again, I committed just that error yesterday morning.  I blame Quantas.  The two images here are from the ‘net, where there are dozens of other great images of this great course.  What these don’t show, of course, are the preparations for the World Cup.

• Uncategorized