The evocative smell of log-fire wood-smoke wafts about in the crisp, high-country air, the last winter snow sits like a mop-top atop the nearby Bullen Ranges, and the frost-hardened, dormant couch fairways of Murrumbidgee Country Club stand spikily to attention.
This is Australian bush golf, though not as most of we coast-hugging, flat-landers would know it.
Playing a round at Murrumbidgee is like playing golf in Dubbo, say, or Mt Isa, Mildura or Margaret River, if any of those bush worthies were laid out on top on the northern alpine edge of the Great Dividing Range.
The altitude means golf hereabouts can be a touch frosty, even snowy in the coldest of the four distinct seasons. Murrumbidgee sees that as a plus.
For while photos down the pristine, artisan-cut fairways of Royal Canberra and Federal sport far-flung views of the fabled ranges of the Brindabella (the hazy blue peaks locals call “the Brindies”), at Murrumbidgee, it’s like the snow-capped mounts are right there, upon you. It is as if you are among them.
Not to say you’ll be slack-jawed with awe gazing at the majesty of the Swiss Alps – it’s Murrumbidgee, not the Matterhorn.
Create your own adventure on the par-4 first. PHOTO: Gary Lisbon
However, on the tee of the short, downhill par-3 fourth hole, to our right and southwards into the horizon looms a fine and dividing range, the Bullen Range, perched out there among the Brindabellas at the northern drop-off of our Great Australian Alps.
Dusting of snow on top. Shimmering blue-green Eucalyptus. It is quite beautiful. As the band Gangajang sang, This is Australia.
That I airmail wedge over the green and bounce it off a service path into the tundra before it bounds (one can only assume) into the dam below, is not course re-designer Ben Davey’s fault.
Rather, it is because the 4th is a simple-looking-if-tricky downhiller and the air is relatively thin in these parts, and thus your golf ball can travel a club longer, especially downhill. Blame physics, not Ben Davey.
How much do you bite off the dam on the par-3 ninth? PHOTO: Gary Lisbon
The routing begins with a shortish, downhill par-4 which bombers could reach in a nor-east wind with the ground baked hard by February sun. Fun hole, and your approach shot could be high wedge or low-running five-iron. You could putt from a hundred out. With a hybrid. Create your own adventure.
The second is a strong par-4 that begins over a gorge to a sloping fairway that feeds everything right.
The third is a par-5, dog-leg left, sparse; skinny-albeit-unyielding trees either side.
We have mentioned four, let us never talk of it again and skip ahead to five – strong, uphill, index one, par-4; a pair of good solid woods for most up to a big, quick, back-to-front sloping green with a false front. It is a very good par, as John Daly and long-standing member Mike Houston would agree.
Crazy-brave bombers can sling their drive in over the out-of-bounds, if they dare, on the par-4 10th. PHOTO: Gary Lisbon
“It is a course you have to play pretty strategically; you can’t just get up on the tee and go ‘bombs away,’” Houston says. “You need to keep it on the fairway – the rough’s pretty rough, but there is reward for risk. And you’re rarely ‘dead.’ You can come back from a dud drive.
“It is obviously not as flash as Royal Canberra, yet the routing compares pretty favourably with anything in town. There are some strong golf holes.
“The fifth, for instance, into a decent southerly, Long John Daly would struggle to hit it in regulation. There are short par-4s and par-5s the big hitters can sneak up on.”
Six is one: a par-5, dog-leg-right. Seven is not; a par-4, long, strong and dog-leg-right. Eight is a shortish par-4 which goes up and over a ridge and down to a well-bunkered green.
And nine is a cracker of a par-3 that heads over a lake and serpentines around it, and can play from 196 metres to 65m, depending how much of the lake the different-coloured tee-boxes ask that you bite off. It is also slightly uphill, and thus a test of nerve – how much do you bail out left, how much do you power-fade. Exciting.
The par-3 13th is long, strong and a test in the southerly. PHOTO: Gary Lisbon
Into the clubhouse and we meet General Manager, Scott Elias, formerly of Federal GC, now running the public facility at MCC. He talks proudly of the huge, new putting green they’re creating, the Trackman in the driving range, the financial year profit of nearly half-a-million dollars from a turnover 10 times that.
From a club with a history of fiscal battles, Elias is proud of the course and club. “We have 1300 members and 1100 playing members who enjoy competitions every day,” Elias says.
“We also have a lot of social players. We average 209 rounds a day, which is about 76,000 a year. Moore Park in the middle of Sydney is the busiest in Australia; they do 90,000 a year.”
The short par-4 16th is downhill all the way and gettable for the bombers in the dry. PHOTO: Gary Lisbon
Elias adds that “the members love the place. If they leave us, it’s rarely for another local club. For social play and members fees, we reckon it’s the best-value course in town.”
Houston, who is also a member of Royal Canberra, has been at Murrumbidgee for 32 years. His home backs onto the second fairway and twice a week he pilots his golf cart to the pro shop for “very social” albeit competition golf.
Houston says Murrumbidgee’s greens staff “do an amazing job in providing us with a great track all year-round in often challenging conditions.”
“Cam [Griggs] and his team often work in minus temperatures in winter and high-30s in summer. We can have limited rain. The greens are usually pretty true and fairways are now in great nick, given the introduction of the couch,” Houston says.
“We have seen – and are seeing – a lot of improvements. The bunkers are being reconfigured as we speak.
“With finances always an issue, I feel like the club is spending its money wisely and giving its members really good value for money.”
Murrumbidgee’s couch fairways are well suited to the region’s four seasons – two quite extreme. The greens are a mix of bentgrass and poa. The bunkers are not deep. The rough is a combination of sparse, white straw and bare, brown dirt, which can scuff new balls like they’ve been taken to by a cheese-grater.
“We don’t have the manicured quality of Royal or Federal,” Elias says. “When you’re in the rough, you’re in the rough, but our cut surfaces are great. The greens are fine and fair. We are proud of it. Going forward, we’re looking to grow the couch fairways out into the rough; it’s a work in progress.”
Davey, of Contour Golf Design, was in Canberra post-Covid to work on Yowani CC’s redesign and picked up a gig with Murrumbidgee while in town. Three years later, he was still around.
“In 2022, I did their bunker master plan,” Davey says. “They had big problems with all their bunkers with drainage. They were built back in the ’90s and drainage was buggered in all of them. Every time it rained, they were basically out of play for two or three days.
“So, our master plan looked at rebuilding all the bunkers, but also putting a bit more strategy into where they were located and not just rebuilding them in the same location. We looked at moving some closer to the edge of greens, putting some in better positions on fairways, and creating a bit more strategy.”
In January, Murrumbidgee hosted the ACT Junior Championships and will again in January of 2026. Elias says the Jack Newton Junior Golf-run event “doesn’t normally repeat the golf course they use. We count it as a compliment that the last tournament went so well that they’re coming back.”
Back into the fray and we tee off on 10, a par-4 which hugs OB left and which dog-legs left for the most part, and which tempts the crazy-brave to sling in a fade through the death zone.
The 11th is a fun par-5 which heads straight, then down, then left, then up, and which has a dead tree right-fairway for a sighter.
From there, in the way of a good public course with 1100 playing members, it’s a mix of strong holes and fun ones.
The “easy” par-3 17th has interesting answers to obvious questions. PHOTO: Facebook
The 15th is an example of a strong one: the index-two par-4 heads uphill and navigates between two mighty eucalypts which guard the fairway like those talking trees in Lord Of The Rings. Knock it though these goal posts and a relatively long-iron will take you up to a big, fast and curvaceous green which is a test of two-putting.
As if to say sorry, the 16th is a fun and downhill par-4 which is reachable for the long-bombers in the dry, while the 17th is a short par-3 up the hill to a big green.
And the 18th is around a lake and could be at The Lakes.
The par-4 finisher is 374 metres from the blue ones at the back, with the green in view, albeit across said lake. A big, straight drive could run out of fairway given the dog-leg jags left like a pocket-knife. It isn’t 90-degrees, it’s about 110. It even throws in OB at the end. It is a fine and worthy finisher.
Tony Johannes and Mike Houston at the Longest Day challenge for the Cancer Council. PHOTO: Supplied
As one of several “Members for Life”, who 20 years ago contributed $7500 to part-fund an irrigation pipeline from the Murrumbidgee River, Houston says “the club is a fantastic network of like-minded people and residents of the local Gleneagles Estate who come together. Socially it’s a great community and one where you meet some very funny people!”
Davey agrees. “It’s funny; the local residents treat the course basically like their backyard. They walk their dogs across it, drive their carts from the houses straight to the clubhouse across the course. It is a real community facility, I guess.
“But the great thing about it – there is plenty of space. That front nine, you can hardly see the houses. And it’s in such a beautiful setting. It is 20 minutes from the middle of Canberra and you have beautiful views of the Brindbellas with a little bit of snow occasionally on top. It is a lovely place to play golf. I think the superintendent has one of the best jobs in the world, spending every day there.”
Back into the clubhouse and the cosy sports bar, we shoot breeze with locals, tip back frosty glasses of hops-based delicious, and urge on the progress of wild bush horses. And you think: Murrumbidgee has it going on.
It is a growing club with money in the bank, it caters to its community and has progressive leadership that’s transparent aboutwhere it’s going.
“I love coming here on a Wednesday; few beers, 18 holes, a club-wide Skins comp. It is great fun,” Houston says.
“I bloody love the joint.”
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