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A golf club in country Victoria wants to build its reputation as the Augusta of Australia and has set its sights on luring Rory McIlroy to play its tournament next year.
Cathedral, the brainchild of former Essendon Football Club chairman David Evans, was designed by his friend Greg Norman and is one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the Southern Hemisphere.
Marac Leishman tees off at the 2023 Cathedral Invitational.Credit: Getty Images
Days after the Australian Open wrapped up at Royal Melbourne, the club will host three of Australia’s greatest ever golfers – Adam Scott, Marc Leishman and Ian Baker-Finch – for the two-day, $300,000 Cathedral Invitational.
The tournament, which is in its third iteration and was first won by Scott two years ago, is something Evans wants to turn into a significant event on the Australian sporting calendar.
He hopes a big prize pool and the lure of a uniquely Australian course will attract the world’s best players, including McIlroy.
“We’ve spoken to his management about it,” Evans said.
Adam Scott at Cathedral. Credit: Getty Images
McIlroy will return to Australia in 12 months to play the Australian Open again, this time at his favourite course Kingston Heath, so Evans is hoping the Northern Irishman’s schedule will allow him to play at Cathedral.
“I think Adam Scott, who is obviously a very big supporter of our club and our event, has mentioned it to him.
“Cathedral is very young, we are only eight years old, so it’s starting to get international notoriety now. I think the tournament will start to get on people’s radars. I’m hoping that’s the case.
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“We’d like it to be something that international players, as well as some of Australia’s best players, want to come and play.
“Now, that’s difficult given it’s on the other side of the world and it’s such a crowded calendar already, but if we can make the product really good where the players really want to play it and it’s quintessentially Australian, we are obviously going to have to have a very big prize pool, but I think we have started well.”
Evans, a golf lover who plays off a low single-figure handicap, has travelled to Augusta several times to watch the US Masters.
He’s built Cathedral with that course and the clubhouse in the back of his mind.
Now he wants to build an internationally renowned event.
“The Masters were originally called the Augusta Invitational, so it’s an extension of that I guess,” he said.
“I don’t think our event will ever be as big as that. But at the same time, it’s in a remote part of Victoria. The topography is extraordinary, the golf course is very unique. There are differences to what Augusta have done. Ours is a family club, but the uniqueness of Augusta is something that I’ve studied very closely.
“Lots of what I have done with Cathedral, Augusta has been a part of.”
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Several thousand people are expected to make their way to the course in Thornton, a two-hour drive north-east of Melbourne through the Black Spur Drive.
That’s a big crowd for a club that is so private its membership figures are kept secret.
“It’s not something we publicise. But it’s less than 200,” Evans said.
For players such as Scott, Leishman and Lucas Herbert, the event is a chance to promote local golf away from the prestigious Melbourne sand belt.
But none of those players is expected to travel to the course by car. That’s where the club’s own helicopter and private helipad will come into use.
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