Rating Royal Melbourne East

[James_Livingston]

"the strength of Royal Melbourne East's opening four holes and closing three cement its top-10 position." was a comment made by a panellist in the article accompanying a recent set of rankings.

Last time I was there (before changes to 6,7&8 but after the 2nd or 3rd go at 15) the course already felt somewhat disjointed due to the poorer standard of care of the outer paddocks.  How is the recent work looking?  I've heard it doesn't gel terribly well, and would be interested to hear the opinions of posters here.  Will the magnificent 7 be enough to hold the ranking afloat?  Or were they on the right track in apparently floating a sale of the outer East course paddocks and deploying the funds raised elsewhere?  Given the very busy road crossing and the boundary issues inherent in the largely anti-clockwise routing of these holes, it sounded like an idea that had some merit.  A swap to grab some land from Sandringham perhaps might be attractive to the Govt (assuming it is owned by one of the levels of Govt)?  Or is it a heresy to even contemplate such a course a action for a golden age gem - or what remains of it?

[Mark_F]

I would venture to say that as the rub of the green is undoubtedly what golf architects should be striving for in this sanitised world we live in, it would be a major mistake to sell off this part of the property, even allowing for the fact that holes on the outer paddock are all a bunch of flat, blind doglegs around a bunch of trees.

[Matthew Mollica]

The author sounds like a pretty savvy judge James.  

The standard of course presentation doesn't seem all that different between East and West. And while there has been some disappointing work in some areas, there exists on East's outer 2 paddocks a core of holes, which if they were RLE, would make me quite sad.

MM

[Brian Walshe]

James,

Of the RME holes not on the main paddock I think 9 (simple dog leg right wonderful green complex), 10 (the cross bunkering and green), 11 (simple dogleg with a football field left and the perfect line into the green hard up against the right tree line and a fantastic green) are all wonderful holes.  They lack the dramatic movement of some on the home paddock but exploit the one rise on that part of the property (the 10th green, 11th tee) to full effect.  The bunkering on those holes is the equal of anything on the sandbelt.

Sadly the changed holes, 6, 7, 8 and 15 are less than the holes they replaced.  The attempt to recreate the old 6th has meant that the green and surrounds don't work anywhere near as well as they used to.  It goes to show that recreating a hole is near impossible.  7 and 8 are out of character.  No other holes on RME are bunkered on both sides of the fairway off the tee and those two holes are now significantly narrower in the landing zone than any of their peers.  They both seem over bunkered in comparison with the rest of the course as well.  The transition from the fairway to rough has always been a highlight at RM.  The last 100 or so metres on the left of 7 and the right side of 15 are just embarassing.

There is still some great golf off the main paddock on RME and I only hope that no more of the holes are "improved".

[RichMacafee]

I can't explain how rankers think on these issues, but I would suggest that RME will suffer a drop in the rankings over the next few years.

I imagine that lowering RM in the rankings may have been a 'no go zone' in the past, but maybe the changes to a significant number of holes will trigger a bit of a re-assessment and it's ranking may suffer slightly.

I agree with Brian that there are some fantastic holes, and great architecture on some of the 'outer paddocks'. Comparisons with the composite holes are inevitable and they will always suffer because of that.

The changes to 6,7,8 & 15 were all done in the name of 'boundary issues', I'm not sure they ever suggested they were improving the course did they Brian? Clearly, they haven't.

With the boundary issues resolved (hopefully)on the outer paddocks, it would be a  mistake to make any more changes out there I agree.