First Look at The Royal Sydney Golf Club Upgraded Course

The Royal Sydney Golf Club in Rose Bay, whose 100-year-old Championship Golf Course was previously ranked 4th in the country by Australian Golf Digest and is one of the best golf courses in Sydney, has reopened after 15 months of upgrades and landscape rehabilitation.

Golf courses have been scrutinised in recent years for their substantial use of water, pesticides, and land. However, the Royal Sydney has directly addressed these concerns in their upgrades. 1,592 additional trees will line the course (despite many being cut down from the internal holes), 500,000 native plants endemic to the local Eastern Suburbs area have been arranged, and more than 100 different species of trees, plants, shrubs and grasses will be found at the course. This is on top of the 20% reduction in water use, saving 73 million litres per year or the equivalent of over 29 Olympic swimming pools, and a significant reduction in chemicals and fertilizers.

However, what you probably want to know is what upgrades have been made to the Royal Sydney course itself and how much it costs to play there and become a member, so let’s take a look!

Through a video posted by @australiangolfpassport above, we are given a tour of the new course. The video shows the layouts of the new holes, contours, and improved tree lines. “I expected it to be good, but I didn’t expect how much fun it’s going to be,” said Scott in the video. “The variety, it’s full of short par 4s, super strategic,” he continued.

“The best hole might be the 6th, which was always good at this place, but never this cool. 110 meters from the hole, and the green is a really interesting shape and contour with a sea of sand around it. So, you’re rewarded for precision on such a short hole.”

“The attention to detail was immense and nothing was left to chance,” reads the caption. “The club had two greenkeepers stationed full-time at the Hawkesbury turf farm that grew the fairway and rough grass, to get it to playing height and RSGC quality before it was cut, so the day it was laid it was already in its ideal condition before grow-in.”

Despite adding more than 1,592 trees to the course, hundreds have been cut down from the internal holes, where they were previously tree-choked. This includes the 18th hole, where you now get a full view of the clubhouse, something that members asked for.

The upgrades arrive as Royal Sydney’s Australian Golf Digest course ranking declined from 4th to 52nd. This renovated course hopes to retain that ranking and potentially surpass it, opening the ability for the club to host live events.

If you want to play at the Royal Sydney Golf Club, that’s too bad. It’s widely considered Sydney’s most exclusive golf club with less than 6,000 members, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, who’s worth more than AUD$20 billion.

Members pay a $6,000 per year membership fee, and a one-time $30,000 fee to become a member of the club.

That’s if you can even get on the list, as the selection process is tough, to say the least. The AFR says that you must be “well acquainted with five members – three of whom you’ve known for five years, and two of whom you’ve known for seven,” just to get on the waiting list to become a member. Still, despite this long waitlist, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the club collected more than $20 million in annual fees in 2020 and one can imagine that this has only increased in recent years.

If you want to get on the list you’ll have to surpass the queue that includes Chris Langford, of Newmark Capital, Andrew Dale (ECP Asset Management), Darren Harvey (Coolabah Capital Investments), Douglas Isles (of Platinum Asset Management) and Tim Gunning ( Canaccord Genuity), according to the AFR report.

While you wait to become a member, read our interview with Australian golfer Cam Smith or check out the best golf clothing brands to wear right now.