The Australian Golf Club

The Australian was inaugurated in 1882 and is the oldest golf club in the country. It has been at Rosebery, six kilometres from the centre of Sydney, for well over a century, and it staged the first Australian Open in 1904 and more than twenty since.

The course as played today is largely Jack Nicklaus’s. In 1976 Kerry Packer brought him in to rebuild it for television, which meant amphitheatre greens, water brought into play and sightlines designed for a camera. Nicklaus returned in 2012 and 2013 for a further renovation, rebuilding the greens in pure bentgrass, reshaping them and adding new greenside bunkering. The Australian Open came back in 2014 and 2015.

What it asks of you

Par 72 over 6,610 metres on flat ground that has been almost entirely manufactured: mounding, lakes and shaped green complexes on a site that offered none of them naturally. This is American championship golf transplanted to Sydney, and the club does not pretend otherwise.

The fairways are narrow and the bunkering is heavy, so driving accuracy is the first requirement. The greens are large, contoured and quick, and the amphitheatre shaping means a miss usually gathers back toward a collection area rather than staying where it landed.

It plays firmer than it looks. The turf is lush to the eye and firm underfoot, which is a difficult combination to achieve and is the reason the conditioning gets talked about as much as the architecture.

What players say about it

Play is by member introduction, so the public record comes from guests, tournament coverage and professionals. The notes below summarise recurring themes across those public sources. They are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we quote only remarks made publicly and on the record.

What comes up in its favour

• Conditioning is the overwhelming theme, and the language is unusually strong. Robert MacIntyre has called it the best-conditioned course he has ever played, and other tour professionals describe the presentation as major championship standard.
• The greens after the 2013 rebuild draw consistent praise for both surface and shaping.
• The American style is treated as a genuine point of difference in a country of sandbelt and links courses, and reviewers enjoy it for that reason.
• The combination of lush appearance and firm playing surface is repeatedly singled out as an achievement.

What comes up against

• The fairways are narrow and the bunkers numerous, which reviewers note as the course’s most punishing quality.
• Purists object that the site is entirely manufactured and that a course this famous in Australia does not look or play like anything else in the country.
• Twice rebuilt for television, it carries little of whatever it was before 1976, which disappoints visitors who came for the oldest club in Australia.
• Access is by member introduction only.

Getting there and when to go

Rosebery is six kilometres from the centre of Sydney and ten minutes from the airport, which makes this the most convenient course of its standing in the country.

The course plays all year. Spring and autumn give the most reliable weather; Sydney summers are humid and the golf is better early. Guest play is arranged through a member.

Green fees

Guest conditions and rates are set by the club. See the club’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, Wikipedia and published architecture and tournament coverage for the history and the two Nicklaus renovations, and the club’s own site for access. The opinion section summarises public reviews, guest accounts and on-the-record remarks by professionals, read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we quote only what was said publicly.

We have not played this course, and nothing here is a substitute for that. The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say in what it says. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.