One of Victoria’s most exciting coastal courses has been selected to host the Victorian Junior Open for the first time, with Curlewis Golf Club to welcome some of the state’s most talented male and female golfers.

The 72-hole stroke play event will be held from September 22-25, 2025 for boys and girls under 18 years of age. 

Curlewis (pictured right), a locality on the Bellarine, 15 minutes from Geelong and 90 minutes from Melbourne, is one of the most revered coastal courses and is regularly ranked within the top 50 Australian courses. 

Superintendent Rob Bradley said weather would be one of the biggest areas of focus leading into the tournament and added the team was bringing forward some construction work.

“I’ve been here a while and September can be a bit fickle with the weather, it can be 12 degrees or 30 degrees so my concern is if we open our greens up too much we might not get them back up perfectly,” he said.

“It’ll be fine but we’ll just do a double dethatcher over it if things do go a bit pear shaped but it’ll be okay. We’re doing a bit of bunkerage construction work at the moment. We were probably going to do that later in the year but we’ve brought that forward to get it done earlier and let it settle down.

“We’re not like a sandbelt course two weeks out from hosting a major tournament, we’ll be right but bunkers is what we’ll continue to work on. It’ll be good to see how the course comes up for the tournament.”

The Victorian Junior Open was first run in 2013 in the lead up to the Victorian Open and provides a big opportunity for junior golfers to experience a professional event with a field size of a maximum 156 participants.

Story by Nick Creely/ Images courtesy of Curlewis Facebook page