Exclusive: Ramsay Warms To ‘Down Under’ Double Tackling Australia’s Top Rated Course

10 months ago by Comments Off on Exclusive: Ramsay Warms To ‘Down Under’ Double Tackling Australia’s Top Rated Course

Scotland’s Richie Ramsay has warmed ahead of contesting the duo of co-sanctioned Australian events by tackling the country’s No. 1 rated golf course.

Ramsay will tee-up in this week’s BMW Australian PGA Championship at the Royal Queensland club in Brisbane and then will head south to Melboure for next week’s ISPS Handa Australian Open being staged at the Kingston Heath course.

This week marks the 10th occasion the Australian PGA Championship has been co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour with the inaugural co-hosting in 2015.

Whereas next week will be the third straight season the countries premier men’s event will be co-sanctioned by the European Tour.

Ramsay will be making his debut as a DP World Tour member in both events having arrived in Melbourne last weekend following a 26 hour, 43 minute and 29.77 second journey from Edinburgh to Melbourne, and this according to his @RamsayGolf ‘X’ account.

Richie Ramsay’s exact travelling time, to the second, in journeying from Edinburgh to Melbourne, Australia. Image Richie Ramsay

And since his arrival, the four-time DPWT winning Scot has been posting some great photographs starting with Australia’s regular No. 1 voted course – the West Course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club.

The West course was designed famed British-born Alister MacKenzie in 1926, and was finally completed in 1931 and with Ramsay posting around a dozen great snaps of his round on his ‘X’ account.

Included were photographs of the actual equipment that are on display at Royal Melbourne and used to design the course.

Royal Melbourne has hosted close to 20 Australian Open’s though the last being over 30 years ago when an emotional Wayne Riley captured the 1991 title.  As well, the co-sanctioned Heineken Classic was played on a composite East and West course at Royal Melbourne from 2002 to the final hosting of the tournament in 2005.

The No. 2 rated course in Australia is Kingston Heath and another of the famed Melbourne ‘Sandbelt’ courses and where Ramsay will tee-up next week for the Australian Open.

Looking at his ‘X’ account, Ramsay he also teed-up on the Peninsula Kingswood course located around 30 minutes south-east of Melbourne.  It gets it’s name after the formation in 2013 of both the Peninsula and Kingswood courses.  Both courses were opened in the 1920s and they also form part of the Sandbelt courses but then have been closed for a few years until a grand re-opening in May this year after being reworked by the company former US Open champ Geoff Ogilvy owns.

Peninsula Kingswood North course enjoys a No. 8 ranked among Australia’s best coures.

This week’s host Royal Queensland course is ranked No. 36 in Australia and is no stranger

The club was formed by a group of Brisbane golfers in 1920 and at the end of the following year their course was ready for play. Designed by Carnegie Clark, three-time Australian Open champion, the holes were laid out on a mangrove swamp at Parker Island on the banks of the Brisbane River.

MacKenzie is said to have advised on green and bunker modifications during a visit to the country in 1926, commenting that the course “might even compare favourably with some of the British championship courses… full of very fine golfing features,” but the extent to which he enhanced the design is debatable.

Three Australian Opens have been held at ‘RQ’, as it more affectionately known, and that was in 1947, 1966 and 1973.

This week will celebrate the sixth occasion, and the fourth in succession the club has hosted the Australian PGA.

Joining Ramsay this week will be fellow Scot David Law who agonisingly went within a shot some weeks back in Spain in regaining his DP World Tour card.

Heading the field will be three-time Australian PGA champion Cam Smith.

 

 



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