Dunes Golf Course The

Few courses in Australia carry a reputation quite like The Dunes. Designed by Tony Cashmore and opened in 1997, it occupies the Mornington Peninsula's sandy Rye terrain — the same stretch of Victoria's coastline that gave rise to the country's finest sandbelt and linksland golf. Cashmore's routing works with boldly contoured dunes rather than against them, producing a layout that feels genuinely rugged and natural, with exposed fairways, firm turf, and the kind of ground game that rewards creativity over brute force.

The Peninsula is one of Australia's great golf destinations, and The Dunes sits toward the more accessible end of a corridor that includes some seriously elite company. What it offers is wind-affected, links-adjacent golf on real sand country — conditions that change the way you have to think about nearly every shot, and where a well-flighted bump-and-run can outperform the prettiest high draw.

It's a layout that rewards repeat visits. The dune ridges obscure landing zones, pin positions on perched greens demand precision, and the coastal wind rarely blows the same way twice.