Five-time major champion and career grand slam winner Rory Mcllroy will be the headline act of the men’s Australian Open for the next two years when it returns to the Melbourne Sandbelt in 2025 and 2026. Royal Melbourne Golf Club and Kingston Heath Golf Club, two of Australia’s most iconic courses, were announced last week as the next two hosts of the prestigious tournament, with a joint commitment from the Victorian Government and Visit Victoria.

For Royal Melbourne director of courses Richard Forsyth (pictured middle right), news of the Open’s return after a 34-year absence is extremely exciting not only for the club but his crew as well. Royal Melbourne last hosted a men's Open in 1991, early on in the tenure of Forsyth’s predecessor Jim Porter. Australian Wayne ‘Radar’ Riley triumphed on that occasion in dramatic circumstances, sinking a 40-foot putt on the last hole to win by a shot over then amateur Robert Allenby.

Despite having hosted Presidents Cups (2011 and 2019), the Talisker Australian Masters and World Cup of Golf back-to-back in 2013 and Women’s Australian Opens (2012 and 2015) during his time at Royal Melbourne, the last time Forsyth prepared a course for a men’s Open was in 1997 at Metropolitan Golf Club. That tournament also ended in a thrilling manner with Lee Westwood defeating Greg Norman in a four-hole playoff.

“It’s really exciting to have the men’s Open back at Royal Melbourne,” says Forsyth, who will prepare the Composite Course for what will be the club’s 17th men’s Open. “It was in need of a bit of reinvigoration, so it’s good to have someone of the calibre of Rory to bring that back to the table. It will be fantastic for the event and great for the club and our team to have him play the Composite Course. You want to see the best players play on your turf and who better than to see at Royal Melbourne than the reigning Masters champion.

“I think it’s really important to host the national Open on the Composite Course on at least a semi-regular basis. It has been too long since that’s happened so the club is excited about hosting it. We have a lot of staff that haven’t done much in the way of tournaments at Royal Melbourne – it has been six years since we had the Presidents Cup – so that will be a new experience for them and with Rory confirmed, and hopefully some other great players as well, there will be a real level of excitement."

Having been in discussions with Golf Australia for a number of months about holding the tournament, the 2025 date works well for Royal Melbourne given that it is about to embark on a major infrastructure project in the coming years. A big focus for Forsyth in recent times has been the planning for a new irrigation system which aligns with the club tapping into South East Water’s Dingley Recycled Water Scheme.

Due to start construction this year and coming online in 2027/2028, the scheme will deliver recycled water to around 40 sites in the Bayside, Kingston, Greater Dandenong and Monash Local Government Areas. Royal Melbourne will be one of a number of Sandbelt golf clubs to benefit from the scheme which will also supply water to local parks, sporting ovals, market gardens and nurseries. The project is expected to cost around $72 million of which the Victorian Government has committed $24 million. The remainder is being funded by South East Water and customers of the scheme which among them includes the new Hawthorn Football Club training facility in Dingley.

Tenders for Royal Melbourne’s irrigation installation went out recently and are due today, with the project to be carried out across two separate seasons in 2026 and 2027 (likely April-October). The new system will be installed across both the West and East courses, with the plan to do the holes on the extremities of the property first and work inwards, with the Composite Course holes to be completed in the second year.

“It’s a big project,” says Forsyth. “It ties in with us getting recycled water from the Dingley scheme which will help to drought-proof the club. It’s a big deal given the issues we have had historically with water. There will be separate pipelines for the greens and fairways, new storage tanks to hold the recycled water and the latest irrigation system to deliver the water to the playing surfaces.”

The return of the Open to a men-only format will make for fascinating viewing, especially in light of the comments made by Cam Smith at last year’s combined men’s, women’s and all abilities event at Kingston Heath and Victoria golf clubs. Despite both club’s copping more than a month’s worth of rain in a four-day stretch leading up to round one, Smith’s tone deaf comments about the greens not being a true representation of the Melbourne Sandbelt went down like a lead balloon. Royal Melbourne is synonymous with having some of the firmest greens in the game and Forsyth is hoping that his team will be able to deliver suitable Sandbelt conditions if the weather permits.

“He’s put a bit of pressure on getting some firm greens hasn’t he. If it’s nice and dry he might have to be careful for what he wishes for,” quips Forsyth on Smith’s past comments. “In light of the conversations about the tournament returning to a men-only format and preparing it accordingly, I think there might be a bit of inspiration to prepare it that way and hopefully that’ll be the case.

“The thing about Royal Melbourne it just needs that release, that firmness in the turf to see it play the way it should because these guys hit it so far these days. We’ll be endeavouring to prepare it that way, but then again if it rains and you get the conditions that Kingston Heath and Victoria had last year, you can’t do much about it. You can’t have firm turf in those conditions, so it’s all in the elements for us, but we’ll be preparing them on that basis for sure.”

The immediate focus for Forsyth and his senior team of Paul Thomas (West Course), Nic Staff (East Course) and Geraldine O’Callaghan (Sandy Links), will be getting the turf surfaces through the approaching winter after what has been a particularly dry summer and autumn. Discussions will also progress as to which Composite Course layout and what tees on certain holes will be used for the tournament.

“There’s not a big lead in and there’s not much that you can do over the winter months anyway,” says Forsyth. “It’s just really about protecting the turf as much as we can and then come out in spring with a bit of growth and topdressing and those sorts of things and get the surfaces finetuned for early December.  

“We won’t be doing a lot of mechanical intervention. Recent conditions have been dry, but if we get an extended wet period we may have to punch some holes through to keep things breathing, otherwise there’ll be minimal disturbance. We may look to do just a fine aeration early in spring depending on how the weather is. We renovated the East Course fairways in January and they’ve bounced back well. The greens (Suttons Mix) have got a pretty good cover at the moment and are performing okay, so we don’t have too much to change or alter.”

Words and Photos: Brett Robinson