Oakmont: The Ultra Major

The 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club has come to its brutal and brilliant conclusion, with J.J. Spaun etching their name into the sport’s most unforgiving chapter. This was not a celebration of beautiful golf. It was an exhibition of survival. Four days of relentless challenge, where every hole asked for everything and gave nothing in return.

Watching it unfold felt less like a golf tournament and more like a spiritual cousin to one of the world’s most punishing endurance races: the Barkley Marathons in Frozen Head State Park, Tennessee. That ultramarathon, designed by Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell, was built on the idea that success should be rare, even accidental. Each time a runner manages to finish, the course is made harder the next year. There is no ideal strategy, no steady rhythm. Only suffering, instinct, and a willingness to keep going when everything says stop.

Oakmont shares this DNA.

The Barkley Marathons, 2014 Documentary. A must watch.

The Fownes family, who built the course, were not trying to create beauty. They were trying to create discomfort. If a player found a solution to a hole one year, they might return to find a bunker in its path the next. Oakmont evolves constantly, its defenses shaped over time to meet the growing strength of modern professionals. Like the Barkley, it is designed not to be solved, but endured.

This year’s U.S. Open felt like a blindfolded trek through a forest with no trail markers, just instinct and grit to guide the way. There were no rhythm holes, no safe landings, no breathers. Balls spun off crowned greens, drives chased into bunkers like magnets, and lies buried themselves in the rough like secrets. Shane Lowry picked up his ball without marking it, a moment of confusion that summed up the mental toll. Adam Scott fought terrain more than opponents. And the weather played its part too, shifting momentum on a whim, rewarding some, betraying others. Oakmont was less a course, more a labyrinth and only one player found the way out.

Week in and week out, the PGA Tour is designed to showcase talent. It gives players the stage to create. Oakmont takes that stage away. It doesn’t ask who can play the best golf. It asks who can keep playing golf when the game has been stripped bare.

By Sunday evening, when the final putt dropped and the final breath was taken, there was no great crescendo. Just the quiet relief of completion. The winner did not conquer Oakmont. They simply survived it longer than everyone else.

This wasn’t just a U.S. Open. It was the Ultra Major. And Oakmont, like the Barkley, reminded us that the most profound tests in sport are not those that seek perfection, but those that make it impossible.

Congratulation J.J.

Happy Golfing

Going Nuclear

Golf is a game of discourse by variables. Wind or no wind, firm or soft ground, nerves jangling or oddly calm. From the first shot of the day on the first tee, you’re managing a chain reaction. One small thing sets off another: a gust of wind leads to an over swing, which leads to a plugged lie, which leads to a filthy mood, which leads to... well, you know how it goes.

It’s nuclear fission, in the guise of a tweed flat brimmed cap. Each shot splits the atom of your composure. And your job, quietly and nobly, is to avoid total nuclear meltdown.

That’s where the golf architect comes in. They’re not handing you a strategy, that’s your job as the golfer. They’re designing the reactor, tweaking the pressure, setting the temperature, adding just enough tilt and temptation to test the limits of your containment system.

The best courses don’t explode. They smoulder. They build tension without tipping over and that’s what keeps us coming back. The thrill of holding it together, one swing at a time and an endless power for playing the game of Golf.

Ranking the Rankings

With the oversaturation of opinion on the internet, what’s the harm in throwing one more into the void?

Golf course rankings are the fodder of choice for golf tragics like us. Disenfranchised from whatever real priorities we should be tending to, we instead find ourselves doomscrolling through numbered lists, getting irrationally upset that one course is ranked higher than another. A course we’ve played once suddenly becomes a hill we’re prepared to die on. But what does this say about the rankings themselves?

The unfortunate truth is, rankings matter. Economically, they’re critical to the survival of many golf courses. They’re the weird, slightly embarrassing marketing monster we’ve all helped create. Placing courses like Cape Wickham in a compromised position. A stunning, remote golf course built in the middle of Bass Straight, and hanging on to every great ranking it gets as it survives on tourist dollars and list chasing fiend. The very top of the rankings will always be hogged by the usual suspects, basking in the compounding glow of historical success. But at the opposite end of the list, for some of our beloved battlers, it’s a knife fight for relevance.

So yes, I hate rankings. I also become irrationally upset over them. It’s a maddening contradiction — to reject the whole idea of a pecking order, while also caring deeply whether a course I love (or loathe) has moved up or down three spots. It’s our right, as golf course tragics. We live this madness. So, why not go one step further?

Let’s rank the people who rank the courses...

Is this helpful? No.
Is it fair? Also No.
Did I enjoy putting it together? Not particularly.
But here it is anyway.

Ranking Dog Friendly Golf Courses would be as close as I would come to do a ranking…

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8. UK Golf Guy + Australian Golf Passport Podcast
There isn’t enough data to really assess this one, but I’m including it because they’re influential and likable and I need to fill out my rankings to the even number. That said, has DJ ever played a course below a 13 rating in Australia? I’d love to see him grind it out somewhere truly average just to calibrate the system. DJ, the floor is yours.

For Matty & Scowarrrr we wait in anticipation!

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7. Planet Golf – Community Rankings
Turns out, a surprising number of this community has played Ellerston. Enough to rank it 6th in the country, apparently. I haven’t had the privilege, but I’m skeptical. The cult of privacy seems to influence a lot here, and a few other courses are ranked in ways that defy logic. Amusing, yes. Trustworthy? Less so.

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6. GolfLux
After calling out New South Wales bias in other rankings, GolfLux has zagged and gone full Victoria. Their “Top 15 Australian Courses” waits until number 11 to mention a non-Victorian layout. The list is short, which is refreshing, and the title is strangely captivating. But the actual rankings? Laughable. Good entertainment value though, and maybe that’s the point. Dammit.

PS: Peninsula not Peninsular

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5. Australian Golf Digest
Offended might be too strong a word, but I’m not thrilled. The exclusion of RACV Healesville and the inclusion of some truly questionable picks leaves me scratching my head. It reads like a list built by people who really want you to know they’ve played a lot of golf, just maybe not all the right courses.

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4. The Golf Travel Agency
I appreciate the honesty that comes with a list built from personal experience rather than a committee room. That said, the New South Wales lean is hard to ignore. Maybe I’m just showing my own Victoria bias. Or maybe we’re both right. Either way, some omissions are glaring, though I’ll forgive them because there’s only so much golf one person can play in a calendar year.

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Wouldn’t be an Australian Golf Ranking blog without an image of a Kangaroo or two on a golf course…

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3. Golf Australia
This one delivers a thorough ranking from 1 to 100, with the odd hint of bias depending on where you're standing. Overall, it’s a well-constructed list that seems to take its job seriously. No major quarrels, which is both a compliment and a criticism.

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2. Top100 Golf Courses
A reliable go-to, not so much for the rankings themselves but for the accompanying course data and photography. Solid in structure, although once you get past course number 70, the list starts to look suspiciously like someone just typed out names in no particular order. Maybe 100 is too many for this country?

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1. Golf Course Guide – Public Courses Version
An exercise in restraint, this list benefits from the notable absence of private clubs. Without the shadow of the usual suspects, it offers some breathing room for lesser-known gems to shine. Most of the top 100 feel like they’re in the right postcode. A rare example of rankings done right, possibly because half the usual politics were left out.

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Have I missed one? Almost certainly. Somewhere out there, someone has built a Google Doc with 74 conditional formatting cells and a pivot table built around bunker maintenance and the availability vege options at the halfway house. And if they send it to me, I’ll probably read every word.

Because that’s who we are.

Happy Golfing!
Nick.

Can one cool golf hole carry it into rankings? asking for a friend…

5 Ways TGL Can Improve Its Design

1. Teams That Represent Their City
   As creative and whimsical as the current crop of virtual architects have been—crafting courses reminiscent of a Bob Ross painting crossed with a 90’s Sega dreamscape—why are we sticking to the rigid framework of traditional golf course architecture? TGL has a golden opportunity to break the mold and do something truly provocative. Imagine golf courses built into the very fabric of the cities they represent: a hole that plays along the Golden Gate Bridge, or a shot from the Top of the Rock to another Manhattan skyscraper. It’s time to make city pride a visual and interactive experience.

2. Home Advantage
   If TGL can establish golf holes that directly tie to their respective cities—featuring iconic sites that resonate with local pride—we could build in a unique “home ground” advantage. Here’s how: teams would have exclusive practice access to their own city-themed holes, creating a distinct edge over visiting opponents. To add even more nuance, teams could also select the pin placements for their home matches. It’s a small but meaningful touch that would deepen the connection between teams and their cities.

3. A Rolling Ball Isn’t That Interesting
   Let’s face it—part of the thrill of watching golf is the suspense leading up to the ball's landing. But once it hits the virtual fairway and starts rolling endlessly, that tension dissipates. Even if it’s heading toward a virtual water hazard where it’s about to get swallowed by a CGI shark, it just doesn’t make for riveting television. To keep audiences engaged, we need more dynamic reactions and visual storytelling even after the ball has landed. Let’s keep the action alive, even when gravity takes over.

4. The Voided Space
   One of the most glaring differences between TGL and traditional tour golf is the voided space around the players when they hit their shots. On tour, we’re used to seeing fans up close, reading their faces as they react to a great or disastrous shot. During the pandemic, we learned just how much fans contribute to the energy of the game. So why not bring spectators closer to the action in TGL too? Integrating the crowd visually and spatially would add a much-needed layer of excitement and authenticity.

5. Boring Bunkers
   Let’s be honest—tour players are bunker maestros. The current TGL bunkers showcase their talents but don’t offer much in terms of jeopardy. To shake things up, why not introduce a shallow bunker that provides unique camera angles to highlight technique and precision? And on the flip side, how about a 21st-century cousin to the infamous Devil’s Hole bunker—something small, sinister, and virtually unplayable? A shot landing there could spell disaster, adding tension and drama to every approach.

Breaking Golf's Barriers

Season Two of Bryson DeChambeau's ‘Breaking 50’ series has returned to YouTube for 2025, offering a fresh and electrifying perspective on the game of golf. Bryson, one of the sport's most dynamic and marketable figures, continues to captivate audiences by blending athleticism, intelligence, and unfiltered honesty. In this series, Bryson partners with friends and golf-obsessed celebrities to take on a round of 18 holes from the forward tees with one target in mind: breaking 50 shots. While the format is simple, it injects new excitement into the sport, delivering highly entertaining content for golfers of all experience levels.

A Deeper Conversation: Course Length and Design

What makes ‘Breaking 50’ particularly compelling is its ability to spark important discussions about golf course length and design in relation to preserving championship-level difficulty—an issue that often clashes with the traditions and history of the game. As Bryson navigates these courses, viewers gain insight into the strategic thought process behind the challenge and how playing from the forward tees unveils a new dimension to the sport.

Raw Power Meets Strategy and Skill

While ‘Breaking 50’ emphasizes precision and strategic shot-making, raw power remains a critical factor in achieving the goal. Despite playing from shorter tees, Bryson’s incredible distance and accuracy are still on full display. The format doesn’t diminish his power—it forces him to use it wisely, turning each round into a true test of skill and strategy.

In Episode 1 of Season Two, Bryson used 11 different clubs—coincidentally, the same number he used during his final round at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. However, the variety of club selections at the PGA Frisco West Course starkly contrasted with Winged Foot, where he took driver 12 times off the tee, overpowering the course en route to victory. This contrast highlights how forward tees create an entirely different strategic challenge.

As modern golf courses continue to lengthen, many professionals overpower them with sheer driving distance, neutralizing hazards that once shaped the game’s difficulty. While the spectacle of enormous drives can be thrilling, it has, over time, become somewhat monotonous. The emphasis on raw power has overshadowed the finesse, creativity, and strategic elements that make golf so compelling.

A New Perspective on Course Length: The Case for 4,500-Yard Courses

As discussions about technology’s impact on golf intensify, Breaking 50 makes a strong case for incorporating shorter courses into competitive play. Could tournaments be just as exciting on 4,500-yard courses, with professionals shooting in the low 50s? While unconventional, there are clear advantages to this approach.

Advantages of a 4,500-Yard Course:

• Dynamic Play – Shorter courses would shift the focus from sheer distance to skill and strategy, making for a more engaging spectator experience while elevating professionals with diverse abilities.

• Enhanced Accessibility – More relatable course layouts could attract new players, making golf more inclusive and approachable for broader audiences.

• Increased Excitement – With scores closer to 50, every shot becomes critical, heightening the drama and unpredictability of the game.

The goal isn’t to make golf easier—it’s to introduce varied challenges that emphasize decision-making, precision, and adaptability as much as driving distance.

Sustainability Benefits of Shorter Courses

Beyond the strategic and entertainment value, shorter courses present significant sustainability benefits compared to traditional 7,000+ yard layouts. The environmental impact of golf courses, particularly in urban areas, is often overlooked, but embracing 4,500-yard designs offers a more sustainable future for the sport.

Sustainability Benefits of 4,500-Yard Golf Courses:

• Reduced Water Usage – With less land to maintain, shorter courses require significantly less water, a crucial factor in drought-prone regions.

• Lower Resource Consumption – Fewer fertilizers, pesticides, and maintenance resources make these courses more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient.

• Urban-Friendly Design – In densely populated areas, shorter courses alleviate land-use pressures, preserving green spaces for community recreation.

• Improved Social Impact – Playing from the same tees—regardless of skill level—fosters inclusivity, making golf more inviting for players of all backgrounds.

• Faster Pace of Play – In an era where time is a premium, shorter courses allow golfers to complete rounds more efficiently, making the game more accessible to busy individuals.

Additionally, shorter courses could revolutionize golf course infrastructure. Imagine an 18-hole facility transformed into two 36-hole layouts, doubling capacity, increasing revenue, and improving overall player satisfaction by providing more tee-time availability.

Impacting the Game at a Local Level

Bryson’s Breaking 50 isn’t just influencing professional golf—it’s making waves at the grassroots level. At my own club, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the series has inspired players to recreate the challenge on our course. This shift is breaking down stigmas surrounding forward tees and offering golfers of all skill levels a fresh way to engage with the sport.

Younger players, in particular, are embracing new strategies and rethinking their approach to golf. The once-dismissed forward tees are now being celebrated as a legitimate and exciting way to play the game while improving skills in the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRCCJ9K-EFs

Conclusion

Bryson DeChambeau’s Breaking 50 series continues to inspire and challenge golfers by highlighting the interplay of power, strategy, and precision. It encourages us to reconsider course length and design, advocating for shorter, more sustainable layouts that provide new challenges while benefiting the environment and community.

Whether or not professional tournaments on 4,500-yard courses become a reality, Bryson’s work is opening new perspectives on golf. By emphasizing skill, strategy, and inclusivity, Breaking 50 is shaping the future of golf in ways we never expected. As the conversation continues, one thing is clear—golf is evolving, and Bryson DeChambeau is at the forefront of that change.

Happy Golfing

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Metro Review

The prestigious Metropolitan Golf Club is a course lorded for its supreme conditioning & historic championships. The Oakleigh site has easily held its place as one of the top courses in the country for over 100 years. However, in recent years, fresh competition has caused introspection, leading to an unanswerable question of what is Metropolitan’s identity? This can be traced through the club's 133 year old history, back to the days of the Melbourne Golf Club in the late 19th century. A patchwork of Australian golfing history that commands great reverence, but in 2025 is being subdued.

Without regurgitating what is readily available online, the Melbourne Golf Club, which later became the Royal Melbourne Golf Club was founded in 1891. The early 20th century saw urban sprawl fracture the club in two, where a portion of its members went from Malvern to Sandringham (Royal Melbourne) and the remainder to a site in Oakleigh, which is where Metropolitan is located today. Engineer, J.B. MacKenzie laid out the original routing of the Oakleigh course in 1908, and roughly 18 years later, golf course architect, Dr. Alister MacKenzie, gave some additional consulting advice. By 1930, the club had hosted its first Australian Open, paving the way for many professional events to follow. The general perception at the time was that if a course was fit enough to host a professional tournament, it was considered as one of the best courses in the country. If hosting tournaments was your only barometer for how good a golf course is, it can easily give a club a false sense of security and flattering their vanity.

After 30 years of stability, the 1960s saw significant change, when a portion of the club's land was ‘acquired’ for the development of a local high school. This led the club to the search for its next ‘MacKenzie’, to re-route the course. There were two US based candidates, Robert Trent Jones Sr. and the Dick Wilson, who they selected. It was the only work that Wilson completed in the country and for the club it was quite the coup for getting a modern age architect down under. A sign of intent for a club continuing the pursuit of greatness. The next 50 years saw local architects Tony Cashmore and Peter Thompson as the consulting architects of choice, and more notably in recent years, homegrown talent, Michael Clayton. Which brings us to the latest history, with the 2014 appointment of Neil Crafter and Paul Mogford.

To set the scene, the selection of Crafter and Mogford came at a time of stability for the club. Metropolitan was prominently ranked as one of the best in Australia, with the course conditioning under superintendent, Richard Forsyth and the team being second to none. The 2014 Master Plan that was produced, outlined greater continuity to the external surrounds across the property and minimal disruption to the existing course features. Aligning with the club's ideology and sustaining its prestige into the foreseeable future. In the 2010’s the two courses at Barnbougle were the only notable additions to the Aussie golf landscape, but an overwhelming and unprecedented amount of change was imminent. The club's distinguished status was about to be challenged by a dozen of its peers who developed master plans and made some serious improvements that overshadowed Metropolitan's architectural pedigree, even if the conditioning was still top-notch. 

Below is a list of projects constructed and or in construction since the initial appointment of Crafter and Mogford in 2014. It would be conservative to say that the courses that received significant improvement in the 2014-2020 time frame put significant pressure on the club and began to overtake Metropolitan’s glimmering status.

In 2020, the club, together with Crafter and Mogford, identified a need to revise their 2016 Master Plan. The committee had agreed upon undergoing a more major program to replace the greens, and with a steep increase in competition in Australia, this iteration allowed for the team to have more creative freedom. These intentions were genuine, however Crafter and Mogford’s key strengths are often aligned with conservatism and appeasing a broad audience through the details of a meticulous Master Plan. In other terms, they are composers of a symphony, conducting music that they have written for the musicians to follow. A revision of the Master Plan halfway through its implementation is like asking these composers to conduct freeform Jazz and expect it to sound like Miles Davis.

Crafter and Mogford’s early success in the 2016 Master Plan include the transitions from green to tee on the fourth to the fifth hole, and the ninth to the tenth. The tee expansion work across the front nine was necessary and well received. Some of Dr. Alister MacKenzie consulting advice has been adapted for today's technology, like on the third hole, a good reflection of the architect's astuteness and passion for historical referencing. However, where I have concerns for the course at Metropolitan lies within the ‘charming characteristics’ being nullified by practical solutions. Mounds, hillocks and contours that were once a deliberate construct of architects' past are now being deemed as impractical for playability purposes.

The most prominent example of this is within the reshaping of the ninth green complex and how it has affected the strategy to a unique golf hole. A challenging par 4 which severely doglegs to the right. The natural camber of the fairway slopes away from the direction of the green, making it a difficult fairway to hold. The natural slope and subtle architecture emphasize the strategy on #9, as trying to land your drive on the right hand side of the fairway is the key to a simpler approach. The original green shaping had a subtle half pipe which made it relatively easy to play from the right hand side and difficult to approach from the left. However, in the revised iteration the penal left hand bunkers were reduced in an attempt to improve the playability from within them, at the expense of the ‘half pipe’ effect that once was. This has provided better visibility of the green from the left hand side of the fairway, but significantly reduces the incentive of finding the right hand side of the fairway, which was the entire strategy of the hole. This is like having a wonderful succulent sunday roast, put into a blender so that everyone can enjoy it through a straw.

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Tree management has been a point of contention for years, however Crafter and Mogford’s influence has been excellent and commendable, especially on the back nine. A necessary evil, this allows the remaining specimens to reach their full potential, as well as promoting the regeneration of biodiversity across the property. This excellent tree work will improve the course conditions with increased ventilation and improved sunlight. However, the back nine itself isn’t without its controversies and is an exposed melting pot of design ideas of past and present. For as long as I’ve played golf at Metropolitan, the back nine has lacked continuity by comparison to the front. It has some good golf holes and green complexes when analysed in isolation, as well as offering tremendous potential for the club to discover its identity. Holes like the 12th, which are currently in the crosshairs of change, will provide another bone of contention, but a great opportunity for Crafter and Mogford to prove the pessimists wrong.

In summary, Metropolitan is a powerful golf club that is capable of achieving a world class facility to provide exceptional golf for its members. However, it seems to me that the timing of the project has caused a recent urgency to improve. The architectural details seem to have been rushed and not executed to the level that you would expect of a Sandbelt great. A more unified understanding of the club's identity may have been a helpful stabilising force to have, and there is still time for the club to realize its full potential.  Its perseverance to achieve greatness, will not slow down anytime soon and changes made have allowed for conditions to thrive even further from its preexisting lofty heights.

Happy Golfing