Course no.11 for 2025: Patterson River, Vic
Contrasting mid-afternoon, winter colours on the par5 last tee
Nomadic_golfer : June 2025 – Patterson River Vic, review
Par 72 6138m Slope 131 $100
4 par3s 131-166m, 10 par4s 307-423m, 4 par5s 480-515m
This bustling Melbourne golf club, located just South of the world-famous sandbelt, has had a fair bit of work on it in recent years. The current incarnation is an attractive, tight (trees in places, water in others) track with plenty of trees, natural vegetation and birdlife and its fair share of water, some of it blind. Excellent green surfaces (bent/ poa) but very receptive. Santa Anna fairways had browned off in winter, but fine.
There are numerous birdie/ bogey holes. If you can drive it in the fairway here, there are plenty of short irons into receptive and very true greens, but some of those fairways (including your first teeshot) are quite tight – hence I reckon its a course that has a lot of holes where its a fine line between a birdie and a bogey. It has a good testing set of par3’s each with very attractive green settings, well bunkered and contoured, but 3 of the 4 are very similar in length (157-166).
There is a really good range of lengths in the par4s without having a real drivable one – but numerous short to mid that give you great opportunities if you can find the fairway with a driver or 3W. A couple of the par5’s (4 and 18) are 2 of my favourite holes here – 4 with water up the left for most of the hole and sparse trees and a fence right; 18 at over 500m into the prevailing breeze with a very wide fairway off the tee that narrows dramatically as you approach the green, captained by a blind water hazard 50m short of the green on the left.
There is some character in a number of those shorter 4’s without any brilliant standouts – my favourite 4 is probably 17 – a 373m dogleg left around trees, with bunkers right from about 235m for those who want to get as far down as they can, but don’t quite turn it over. There are a few options off the tee here though, including a line over those corner trees without much margin for error, if you do want to work one left to right. The green is protected by bunkers cutting in at the front right entrance, then subtle slopes to negotiate before you can pencil in a 4.
Overall, there is good reason why this course sees over 40,000 rounds per year. Fine playing surfaces on a layout that makes you think and gives you plenty of opportunities to knock your ball in the drink, provide a fair and entertaining test..
