Mike
RM have an event open to Members each year where they play qualoifying rounds on West and East and the leading X number of players, i think about 100, play the final round on the composite. Men play the E and W on 2 Saturdays and the Ladies over 2 wednesdays and the final round is on a Saturday.
The Composite is also in play on Christmas Day. They lock all gates except the main gate and have the course ranger on duty who only allows Members and their family in. I spent 6 Christmas mornigs in a row playing 18 and sometimes 36 holes in the composite while i was an assistant pro there in the mid 90's.
John
IMO you give the "paddock" holes a bad rep whereas they are all wonderful holes in their own right, maybe not up to the class of other stretches on the course but still worthy.
The green on 13 is extremely deceptive with the ridge running across the centre and to find teh right portion of the green can be challenging. The back portion beyond the ridge is quite shallow and many balls do run off the drop away and over the green.
The 14th green complex has always been one of my favourites at RM with some subtle contouring and excellent bunkering. IN my early days there i was still using persimmon and without a solid drive you were always about 145 out, whereas now it is 3 wood and wedge or less. The correct line has always been as close to the left hand trees as possible.
While the 15th has seen better days as a par 5 at 427m it still has wonderful qualities. Again in the day of the persimmon driver you needed a solid drive to think about trying to play your second over the cross hazard. Today it is a drive and a hybrid to mid iron.
KH and Yarra Yarra are fortunately located over a natural spring and have more water than they need, hence the conditioning is generally excellent. Commonwealth is loacted very lose to both KH and YY and it is not over the same water course.
YY has 5 bores of which 3 produce good water.
IMO RM West is still the best course in Australia, the gap to KH is closer than ever with the work they have done over the past decade. NSW is wonderful and clearly 3rd, however there is quite a gap between KH and NSW.
It would be great to think that RM could quietly go about making the changes they are currently undertaking without them being questioned from one end of the country to the other. I for one am quite confident that with the current management we will all see the best of the old girl in the years to come.
Of the top 100 listing I would swap Metropolitan and Victoria. While i enjoy Moonah Legends and the dunes they should really be somewhere in the mid 20's not 13 ands 14. St Andrews must be 30 due to lack of play from the raters, that is the only way.
Last year I had 2 raters turn up in my Pro Shop saying they had a booking to play and they were raters with Golf Digest. NO booking was made, they expected Golf Digest to book for them. We had a full time sheet with 180 players,so we added a group to accommodate them and we charged them our member's guest green fee. The reaction was one of utter contempt that we should be charging them and not bowing and scraping to them. I called the Editor to confoirm they were indeed raters of which he siad yes they were. Not surprisingly neither was listed in teh latest edition of teh magazine as being on the panel!
