Major honours
Royal Melbourne is Australia's longest-running golf club and the course most often ranked the best outside the British Isles and America. Founded in 1891, it gained world renown when Alister MacKenzie — who later co-designed Augusta National — visited in 1926 and designed the West Course. With East and West courses, big events use a composite routing mixing holes from both, set up at roughly 6,900 yards to optimise spectator flow. The Sandbelt's sandy soil south-east of Melbourne allows extremely tight mowing, producing large firm greens, sprawling bunkers and run-off areas that make it a textbook of strategic golf. It hosted the Presidents Cup in 1998, 2011 and 2019; in 1998 the International team crushed the United States 20.5 to 11.5.
Record comparison
Bars are scaled to the strongest team in this list.
Club legends
Rivalry
It has long duelled with Kingston Heath, another Sandbelt course, for the title of Australia's best. Both sit a few kilometres apart and share bunkering by Mick Mackenzie, but Royal Melbourne's role hosting international events gives it the wider global profile.