Victorian Minister for Sport and Recreation, Justin Madden presided at the official opening of Sandhurst Club at Skye, Melbourne's latest championship golf course and the future home of the Professional Golfers Association, which will relocate from Sydney by 2006 with the Victorian office of the PGA already on site.
The Sandhurst Clubhouse on the North Course
Mr Ken Roche, Chairman of Sandhurst Club said, "The opening of the Golf Club and Clubhouse today is a major milestone for the club which already has six hundred members."
At Sandhurst, designer Peter Thomson’s influence is quite evident. The five times British Open champion has created holes based on his unparalleled experience of links golf in Scotland. A striking example is the “Wall” hole, the first of four par threes. Built on the left side and rear of Sandhurst’s third green, the stone wall adds even more in the way of “protection” for a hole already boasting beautiful contouring.
“Then we’ve got the ninth hole that’s like the first at St Andrews in that you pitch across a burn with the green immediately over the water. I don’t know that there is such a thing in Australia. This is a championship venue and I want to see that it separates the field, that the best players come out on top of the list,” Thomson explained.
The opening of Sandhurst Golf Club is a milestone in the project and signals a significant increase in activity on all fronts including golfing and residential.
Now the Clubhouse is open and fully operational it is expected that many people who have purchased land will commence building. The second “PGA Champions” course will honour 18 past and present members of the Australasian PGA which has the distinction of being the second oldest PGA in the world.