The Spring Valley Golf Club is a private members club. Visitors from Interstate or Overseas are welcome during certain periods of the week. Such visitors will need to be members of a recognised golf club, with a current membership identification card or a letter of introduction from the home club. Contact Planet Golf for assistance with tee times.

Located a short drive from the Kingston Heath Golf Club, and set well within the famed Melbourne Sandbelt area, the unheralded Spring Valley golf course is one of the true hidden gems of Australian golf.

The club was founded in the late 1940s by members of a nearby public course, who engaged Vern Morcom, son of the legendary superintendent Mick Morcom, to lay out 18 holes in a paddock purchased for the princely sum of £5,800.

Morcom’s first 9 holes opened in 1951, and the full 18 was in play by 1952, making Spring Valley one of the younger members of the Melbourne Sandbelt community. Despite its relative youth, the club has undergone significant change in its 60-year history, especially over the last decade or so when an impressive new clubhouse was built and a serious overhaul of the golf course undertaken by Michael Clayton and his partners.

While Clayton’s team left the routing largely untouched, they modified and updated most of the greens and bunkers, improving the playing experience and challenge of Spring Valley greatly in the process. The one hole they did build anew was the short par three 10^th, which is only 130 odd metres long, but defended by one of the fiercest green complexes in Melbourne. The putting surface here is small and narrow, and protected on both sides by deep, traditional Sandbelt bunkers. Many dislike the new 10^th, and it can certainly wreak a scorecard, but there is a more severe short par three a few miles away at Kingston Heath, and few golfers have any problem with that hole.

Pleasingly, the good holes at Spring Valley are spread nicely across both nines and it’s really the mix of interesting green sites, strategic fairway and bunker arrangements and challenging dogleg holes that give this course its charm. Those visiting Melbourne, and looking for a good quality sleeper course to play should consider Spring Valley.