Moonah trees (Melaleuca Lanceolata) in the local area are thought to be up to 1,000 years old. The Moonah trees on what is now The Old course’s 1st fairway and 15th green are estimated to be over 300 years old. Great care is taken by our ground staff to protect these precious trees.

During a two-and-a-half-year period in the late 1990s, approximately 55,000 Moonah trees were planted on The National Golf Club site.

David Inglis, the founder of the Australian Masters golf tournament and promoter of the Bicentennial Classic at Royal Melbourne, had been looking for a golf course in Melbourne to develop an idea he had for a private club. Inglis was inspired by courses and clubs he had visited in the United States.

Marketing manager Bob Sharkey connected Inglis with project manager Laurie Curtis. The two discussed a concept for 36 holes, dividing the golf into private and public courses, and ideas for equity shareholding memberships.

In mid-1984 Inglis and Curtis committed to the purchase of the Cape Country Club Pty. Ltd. for around $1.4 million. The purchase consisted of 583 acres of land including the 18-hole Cape Country Club golf course at Cape Schanck built by Colin Campbell. Soon after, Robert Trent Jones Jr. was contracted to build two 18-hole courses, one public and one private, demolishing Campbell’s Cape Country Club.

With the bold slogan “A New Direction in Australian Golf”, The National was launched to the public in a hospitality tent at Huntingdale Golf Club during the Masters Tournament in February 1985. A scale model of the proposed development at Cape Schanck was on display, along with literature and spectacular photography of the site. Word spread quickly as no new private golf club had been formed in Melbourne in about 60 years, and the shareholder equity aspect was unique in Australia.

Early in April 1985 bulldozers moved on site and commenced their mammoth task of moving a million tonnes of earth to build two golf courses and a residential development. Priority was given to the Cape Schanck public course and residential development of 210 sites on the perimeter.

1985 saw the formation of National Golf Holdings Limited, with its first meeting held on 4 March 1985. This entity would go on to purchase The National golf course, its 206 acres and clubhouse site from The National Golf Club for $2.5 million.

David Launder was the first President of The National Golf Club and served as a Board member and Chair of National Golf Holdings from 1985 to 1989. He worked tirelessly to promote share and land sales, helping lay the foundations of the club we have today.

David was a member of the ‘Class of ’85’, a dedicated group of approximately 100 people who believed in the vision of the club and purchased the first 100 shares.

When the 1987 share market crash had a significant impact on the Club – creating a shortfall in funding needed to complete the original clubhouse – David, together with his brother Richard Launder and Michael Hamson, played a pivotal role in raising $1.6 million from a group of 10 close friends. They came to be known as the ‘G10’.

David Launder donated the President’s Cup and was its first winner in 1988.

By 1986 work was being done on The National private course, with the centre lines for the fairways being cut through the heavy scrub, with a land fall of 60 metres between the front and back nine holes. The clubhouse site was cleared, and members and their guests were invited for barbecues and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see their golf course emerging from the wide sand dunes and scrub.

The Cape Schanck (public) course was completed, and the official opening was marked with an exhibition match featuring Greg Norman and Bob Shearer, the Director of Golf, held on 17 November 1986.

The National members played the Cape Schanck course, including the first Club Championships, until The National private course was completed in 1988.

In 1986, the Board resolved to establish a committee to coordinate the Club’s activities. By 1991, this evolved into a divisional structure, with division heads reporting directly to the Board, making the General Manager’s role redundant.

12 March 1988 marked the opening of Robert Trent Jones Jr’s The National golf course (now known as The Old Course). A full field of members competed for the inaugural Captain’s Trophy. The opening group teed off in pouring rain and scores for the first round were in the low twenties. Captain David Inglis presented the trophy to Lionel Stanes who scored 66 points. The course opened as a par 72, with a total length of 6,318 metres.

An A.V. Jennings builders’ hut served as a clubhouse until the Club’s first clubhouse was completed in December.

David Lack’s logo for The National, which stands in a refined form to this day, was first applied to merchandise in 1992.

Founding Chairman Peter Foster recalled playing with advertising executive David Lack and both agreed that the two things for which The National would be famous were the wind and the tussocks, hence the logo that depicts “our two most dreaded features. Some members claim the flagstick should be bending even further.”

As The National course neared playing capacity, in 1996 the Club purchased 220 acres of neighbouring land, the ‘Gundabah’ property, to build a second course. In 1997 an additional 270 acres were purchased for a third course and driveway access to Boneo Road.

Greg Norman Golf Course Design was contracted to build the Moonah course and Thomson Wolveridge Perrett to build the Ocean course. New shares would be released towards financing the expansion project.

On Monday 2 October 2000, the Moonah course opened for play, and shortly after, on 26 December 2000, the Ocean course opened.

Both courses were a par 72; the Moonah, with a length of 6,552m, and the Ocean with a length of 6,576m.

When the Ocean and Moonah courses first opened, the clubhouse was a tent located near the 9th hole on the Ocean course.

A new clubhouse, for 2,200 members and potentially more, was opened on 1 April 2002. Set into the hillside at the confluence of the Club’s three courses, it boasted a sensitive design blending into its natural surroundings. The brief included the desire to see the courses and the ocean from wherever the clubhouse was entered. A prospectus to raise $7.6 million to fund the project had been distributed in the years prior.

The practice fairway is relocated and expanded to include open air and undercover teeing spaces, bunker and short game areas as well as state-of-the-art coaching facilities.

The original site (left side of Hole 1 on Gunnamatta) and three additional areas were required to be replanted with Indigenous trees, shrubs and grasses to offset the vegetation removal required. Most of these plants were grown by the ground staff from seed harvested on site and included more than 25,300 trees, 10,400 shrubs and 90,000 grasses.

In November 2014, a vote was put to the members of The National Golf Club and Frankston’s Long Island Country Club to merge and form one Club. Both groups of members voted in favour of the proposal and, as a result, The National Golf Club became the only club in the country comprising four quality courses.

The Ocean course served members well for nearly 20 years and a redesign was approved by the membership. Tom Doak was the course architect, and the official opening of Gunnamatta was held at the end of 2019. A full field of members competed on the day, and course records were set by the end of the week from Matt Lever (73) and Sue Wooster (75).

In 2022, members were presented with a concept plan by course architects Ogilvy Cocking Mead (OCM) to redesign the Long Island course. At a Special General Meeting on Sunday 17 July 2022, over 1,500 votes were cast, with the vast majority supporting the proposal.

Work commenced on the Long Island course redevelopment in February 2024 and is progressing well.