With inflation on the rise and the cost-of-living putting pressure on the hip pocket nerve, there’s no need to sacrifice your golf game.
Over the following pages we reveal the best golf you can play in metropolitan areas of Australia – which includes all state and territory capitals and cities with a population over 200,000 – where the green fee presents a real bargain.
To qualify for the list, a course’s most expensive green fee was not to exceed $50. From there, we poured through notes and observations made by Golf Australia editors and Top-100 ranking judges to come up with the courses we believe present challenging, fun golf at a price that won’t put a hefty dint in the household budget.
The green fees listed are the rack rate for visitors and we prioritised the courses in order of their lowest green fee available across the week.
$50-$46
CLAREMONT GC
Hobart, Tasmania
Green fee: $50 (seven days).
The picturesque Claremont Golf Club is laid out across a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the Derwent River, about 20 minutes’ drive north west of Hobart’s CBD.
There are superb views across the water to Mt. Wellington and Mt. Direction, while the river comes into play for the first time at the 174-metre par-3 2nd. It is a demanding hole that is further complicated by a small river inlet that cuts across the hole between tee and green. The target is small and, when the wind blows off the Derwent from the right, the green can be tough to hit with the tee shot.
If you have a problem keeping your shots on the straight and narrow and sliced drives are common-place, be cautious when playing Claremont’s toughest hole – the 410-metre par-4 5th. The glistening waters of the Derwent can be seen through the pine trees lining the right edge of the doglegging fairway, which is never far from the riverbank as it turns markedly from left-to-right and finishes at a smallish green guarded by a lone bunker.
ROSSDALE GC
Melbourne, Victoria
Green fee: $50 (seven days).
Located in the beautiful Melbourne bayside suburb of Aspendale, Rossdale Golf Club is home to a nicely manicured course that weaves through corridors of pines, eucalyptus and coastal banksias.
The original course at Rossdale was laid out in the early 1920s by Australia’s finest amateur of the time, Ivo Whitton. The five-time Australian Open Champion created an interesting layout for the club, then known as the Australasian Golf Club.
The name Rossdale was adopted in 1949 when the club commissioned course architect Vern Morcom to remodel Whitton’s work. Holes were re-routed, bunkers added and the overall golfing experience improved to provide a more strategic test.
Rossdale boasts some quality short par-4s, where you need to question your club and shot selection from the tee. The 319-metre 7th is one such hole. Doglegging right-to-left, the hole generally plays into the prevailing wind, which adds to the challenge of the tee shot coming out of a chute created by tall pine trees. With out-of-bounds left, the right half of the fairway is appealing, but don’t hit too long as you might find the lake that cuts into the playing line.
$45-$40
REDCLIFFE GC
Brisbane, Queensland
Green fees: $45 (weekdays), $50 (weekends).
Redcliffe is one of Brisbane’s most awarded golf clubs, and once you step onto the property it’s easy to see why.
Designed by Stan Francis in 1935, the course has been routed so the prevailing ocean breezes have a major influence, especially across the final three holes of the round.
The course is maintained like a park with the well-grassed and contoured fairways bordered by
