Best golf courses in Victoria
Playing a round of golf at these three Victorian courses presents plenty of challenges – and that’s no bull.
It’s known as the Bull Ring: three challenging golf holes billed as Australia’s answer to Amen Corner, Augusta National’s notoriously challenging triumvirate. And on this cool but sunny day it quickly becomes apparent that this is, indeed, my first rodeo. Holes 4 through 6 at the Peter Thomson-designed Black Bull Golf Course in Yarrawonga, in northern Victoria, comprise a daunting 390m par 4 replete with blind green; a water-dominated 155m par 3, wherein a statue of the Black Bull named Charlie disconcertingly stands sentinel; and a tight and deceptively short par 4. Best out of three? Let’s just say the bovine won.
The public championship course, growing in reputation as a golfing travel destination, sits on the banks of beautiful Lake Mulwala, the man-made water basin created in 1939 as a by-product of the construction of the Yarrawonga Weir across the Murray River. The 439sq km lake is a hot spot for water sports, especially waterskiing. The Black Bull, named in honour of the land’s former purpose as an Angus stud, opened in 2015 and cost about $25m to build. The mark of the five-time British Open winner Thomson, who died in 2018, is everywhere in the layout, with generous, undulating greens, bunkers galore, challenging par 3s and some lovely long par 5s.
I am lucky to be playing with my brother, who lives nearby and who I haven’t seen for some time due to the pandemic. Perversely, the Covid crisis has been good for golf – the sport has enjoyed a renaissance here and overseas – but it is clear, as we approach the end of our round, it has not helped our games. At the 18th green, we take in the vista across Lake Mulwala to its famous water-ski club. Light dances off the brilliant blue expanse of water, and dead river gums reach through its surface, reminiscent of those eerie World War I images from the battle of Passchendaele. While it’s been a war of sorts here today, it’s one we’ve fought only with ourselves.
The 19th hole, and our accommodation for this evening, is the Sebel Yarrawonga, a 63-room resort opened in November 2020. After a cleansing ale on the deck of its Stock and Barrel bistro, my first stop is the day spa for what my wife, back in NSW, will later suggest is a not particularly well-deserved massage. An hour disappears into the ether and I float back to my luxury two-bedroom suite with views over the hotel’s 25m infinity pool. At fine-dining establishment Elizabeth’s, we order a local durif, a regional red. Portarlington mussels arrive ahead of our Murray cod mains, cooked perfectly in lime, garlic and tomato, and as the sun sinks over the lake, we toast our fraternal reunion and commiserate over our miserly Stableford points.
Well known for its Winery Walkabout and Taste weekends, nearby Rutherglen is a tourism boomtown. I take the back road out to beautiful Wahgunyah to meet Damien Cofield, the second-generation owner of Cofield Wines. The vineyard specialises in sparklings, made using the methode traditionelle process; it also produces a number of varietals. The Provincial Black tasting menu, a premium-level selection of four wines paired with local produce, has an accompanying QR-code video to talk me through the offerings. The crisp chardonnay with smoked rainbow trout mousse on a brioche crisp, and a durif with local blue cheese and muscat-soaked raisins, are highlights. This is followed by a light lunch at the winery’s Footsteps Cafe and Restaurant, where a selection of cured meats and tapas also draws heavily on regional fare.
Heading back towards Yarrawonga, wedgetails tracking my progress from above, I arrive at Squires Winery, a newish operation on the Ovens River. Co-owner Paul Squires, a former local government consultant who in a previous life worked for the mayor of London and helped redevelop Trafalgar Square, shows me around the waterfront property. It’s a beautiful day and he suggests a ride in his speedboat. We motor up the river, taking in the scenery all the way to exclusive Bundalong, a waterside hamlet increasingly populated by wealthy Melburnians. Returning to the cellar door, I taste the winemaker’s specialties, among them a bold durif, a woody chardonnay, and the Blue Wren rose, perfect for a steamy Ovens autumn afternoon.
I wake the next morning to a beautiful sunrise over the lake, and jump in the car for the 340km journey down to the Mornington Peninsula, passing through pretty Violet Town and Euroa along the way. After taking a couple of wrong turns in Melbourne – hello, St Kilda – I arrive some hours later at famed Rye course The Dunes. Manager Jessica Wood takes me on a tour of the clubhouse, which overlooks the 120ha, 27-hole championship course. Named for its distinctive sandy mounds, The Dunes is regularly included in the top 10 or 20 Australian courses, public or private. Many consider it a rival to the country’s private sandbelt courses such as Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. It is, in a word, stunning, with rolling hills unfolding towards Port Phillip Bay.
Accommodation comprises architecturally designed timber bunkers built into the hill that surveys the course. The rooms offer glimpses of Bass Strait and are gorgeously appointed, featuring floor-to-ceiling windows opening to a balcony. I take a pew, sipping a craft beer and watching fellow golfers traipse happily up the 18th in the late afternoon.
The next morning I arrive at the clubhouse for my tee time. Players have a choice of two courses: the championship, rated the best public course in Victoria, and The Cups, often rated the best nine-hole in the country. I play the former, and when my playing partners fail to arrive, take the opportunity to play solo. Teeing off the first, a gentle dogleg nestled between a brace of grass-covered dunes, I watch my ball sail into the stormy sky and land gently in the manicured fairway and smile. The fun doesn’t last long, as my second shot finds the first’s famously hidden bunkers that booby-trap the green in the so-called Valley of Sin. It’s the hardest hole on the Tony Cashmore-designed course. The second is equally challenging, starting at altitude and flirting with a row of pencil pines that pave the way to another sand-ensconced green. I meet some other golfers, and we join forces to play the ninth.
“This is as good as it gets,” my new friend Matthew says, as he chips on to the green from 80m. “Mate, trust me. You’ll never look at sand the same way.” He’s right, I think, as I duff a shot out of the pot. We return to the whitewashed clubhouse, taking perverse pleasure in watching fellow golfers battle the deceptive greens and the sand.
I return to my room to get suited and booted before driving down to beautiful Sorrento. It’s a special occasion. Tonight is the grand opening of Audrey’s, celebrated chef Scott Pickett’s fine-dining restaurant on the top floor of one of the most exciting redevelopments in Victoria: the 147-year-old Continental Hotel, known affectionately as The Conti. The gorgeous sandstone pub has been out of commission for five years, and its revival coincides with the grand opening of Pickett’s restaurant named for – and with a menu reportedly inspired by – the executive chef’s grandmother. Offering sweeping vistas out to the foreshore, the dining room is gorgeously appointed, all art deco furnishings, chandeliers and velvet banquettes. The $150 seafood degustation dinner features up to nine courses, ranging from caviar to spanner crab, eel, yellowfin tuna, mussels, squid – sliced into noodles – and a selection of oysters, including from the NSW south coast where Pickett grew up. Andrew Murch, the resident sommelier, is on hand to pair each course with wine, and the result is a phenomenal dining experience. I finish, sated and buoyed by the experience, ready for my final round of golf the following day, at the 13th Beach links.
I arrive at the ferry terminal at dawn and drive on board, headed for Queenscliff and the Bellarine Peninsula. The golf course’s immaculately manicured driveway meanders through housing estates on its way to the clubhouse and nearby beach.
Located just west of Barwon Heads, the course is named for the 13th hole’s proximity to the shoreline. The 36-hole labyrinth, co-designed by golfing great Nick Faldo and Cashmore, is home to the Victorian Open, and its challenges are real. There are three courses: the Beach and Creek courses, and the nine-hole Short Course. While the Beach course is renowned for its challenging par 3s, I play the Creek, best known for its sandbelt-style bunkering and native couch fairways. It’s a gorgeous course, its greens firm and true and its sandtraps artfully dissected from the landscape. The distracting scenery doesn’t help my handicap, and nor does the frigid breeze coming in over Bass Strait, but the experience is wonderful.
There is luxury accommodation here, too, looking out over the fairways and ocean, but I have a plane to catch. I grab a quick bite at the slick clubhouse, and motor back up the highway towards Tullamarine airport, passing through a links-worthy verdant landscape and, alarmingly, a paddock full of black Angus bulls, which stare as I drive by. They seem to be taunting me, daring me to return.
In the know
Black Bull Golf Course offers non-members 18-hole rounds from $65 a person. Rooms at Sebel Yarrawonga from $279 a night.
Non-members can play The Dunes Golf Links 18-hole course from $79 a person, nine holes from $30. There are six two-bedroom suites; from $250 a night.
13th Beach Golf Links is open to the public; from $110 a person on weekdays for 18 holes; from $30 a person for the short course. Choose from a deluxe studio or two-bedroom suite, from $250 a night.
Tim Douglas was a guest of Visit Victoria.