The place looked like the artist Christo had visited but it worked. To make the couch grass grow quickly, the fairways were flooded like paddy fields and the turf grown like rice. When the greens died in 1993, they borrowed two new ones from nearby Kingston Heath, which put its green replacement program on hold briefly. Since then it has been relatively easy sailing and Metropolitan was presented in magnificent condition for the 1997 Australian Open when Westwood beat Norman in a playoff. Today it is invariably ranked among the top 10 courses in Australia and often in the top five.
Players can expect it to be little changed since then.
There are yawning bunkers and hard and fast greens that can become treacherous if they are dried out by the hot, northerly wind. The main difference is that the holes will be played in different order to accommodate the matches finishing, on average, at the 16th hole. Australians were bemused when this happened at Royal Melbourne for the Presidents Cup in 1998 and still wonder if it is necessary to change something that has stood the test of time. We will have the six or seven hardest holes on the course to finish with. Fortunately it is only a one-off thing.