The early history of the Melbourne Sandbelt is largely one of men with the foresight to understand that the rudimentary early 20th century golf they were playing close to the city was wildly deficient of the measure and quality of British championship golf.

Royal Melbourne hired Alister MacKenzie to remake their Sandringham course, Kingston Heath, Metropolitan, Commonwealth, Yarra Yarra and Huntingdale all relocated to the sand-based land to the south of the city and only Woodlands remains on its original site.

The courses have all been through various incarnations as committees, probably inevitably, tinkered with work better left alone. Kingston Heath, in the early 1980s, was the first to head down the restoration path, followed by Victoria. Commonwealth, the venue of today’s opening round of the Sandbelt Invitational, was almost the last to understand its course would be reinvented with work reminiscent of the architecture Sam Bennett and Charles Lane had put on the ground a century ago.

Arguably the courses of the Sandbelt have never been in better form than now, but the question is where to head from here?

Doing nothing is never an option because golf courses evolve as trees grow, and Peninsula Kingswood is the shining light of the Sandbelt in one critical area. Their North Course is the only one where the vegetation is purely indigenous and it’s a path the rest need to follow with a vision of what the courses will look like fifty and a hundred years from now.

Of course, the choices clubs will make will involve a deal of selflessness - or selfishness – as members and committees plan for how these treasured courses will look long after they’ve endured their final three putt.

Walking around Commonwealth today it’s clear the path of rejuvenating indigenous heathlands is well on its way, and these beautiful, tiny plants are increasingly becoming highlights of the Sandbelt courses. The next twenty years will hopefully witness clubs promoting both indigenous heath and eucalyptus because not only will it make for better, more natural golf, but it will shore up the clubs against those who think golf bad for the environment. There is no accounting for their ignorance but being almost the sole preserve of indigenous vegetation in the city will make life for those who would find alternate uses for golf courses a lot harder.

The opening round of the Sandbelt Invitational was highlighted by a putrid north wind day, the one every player dreads and the golf on hard, bouncy greens was difficult for most.

The great rounds came from two young amateurs, sixteen-year-old Ti Fox from Concord and Kayun Mudadana who knows a little about wind from playing high on the cliffs above Botany Bay at New South Wales. 67’s were great rounds in the wind especially as the 13th hole – normally a par 5 but switched to a par 4 this week – was straight into the face of the north wind.

The second day’s golf is at Yarra Yarra — another recently reinvented Sandbelt course — and with the inevitable wind switch to the south the field will find the golf noticeably easier.