Averee Dovsek, Jason Lusk and Gary Lisbon had a match planned against an Aussie side led by Royal Melbourne members Darcy Brereton, a professional who competes on the Handa PGA Tour of Australasia and Henry Peters, Owner of Under The Card. We won’t go into the details – the lopsided match turned out as anyone might expect when a tour pro is involved. But those results didn’t matter, because this was Royal Melbourne.
We played the East Course this day, the somewhat underappreciated sister course of the world-famous West Course. The East checks in at No. 11 on the Golfweek’s Best list of top courses in Australia and New Zealand, and six of its holes are used alongside 12 from the West to create Royal Melbourne’s Composite Course that is played in many top-tier competitions, including 16 Australian Opens and three Presidents Cups.
It was a blast, even as our American team was blasted in the nine-hole match. The course doesn’t return to the clubhouse at the turn, so we kept swinging, unwilling to miss any of this layout. As is often the case, the top-ranked course at any facility receives almost all the adulation in the press and on TV. But the East at Royal Melbourne is not to be missed, not a single shot of it.
