Down The Fairway
An inspired Lukas Michel, course architect and part-time golfer, is in contention at the Sandbelt Invitational
MELBOURNE, Australia—Somewhere, Bobby Jones is smiling.
Golf’s ultimate golfing gentleman, a career amateur who in retirement helped build Augusta National, Jones would love the Sandbelt Invitational, a low-key gathering of friends not unlike the early years of the Masters. And Jones would be particularly tickled by the presence of Lukas Michel on the leaderboard at this year’s Sandbelt. Michel, 29, is another career amateur who is pursuing a career in golf course architecture. But on Tuesday at spectacular Peninsula Kingswood, during the second round of the Sandbelt, Michel fired a 5-under round that was the second-lowest round of a hot, breezy day. That leaves him at 3 under, in a tie for 7th, eight strokes back of leader Daniel Gale, who shot a sizzling 64, a course record at Peninsula Kingswood.
Michel credited his fine score in part to being stimulated by the playing field. The 2019 U.S. Mid-Am champ, Michel was influenced by Jones’s design philosophies while competing in the ‘20 Masters, but his real golfing education was cutting his teeth in Melbourne’s Sandbelt, with its wealth of superlative courses. As an undergrad, Michel joined Metropolitan Golf Club, where he became buddies with Sandbelt Invitational tournament director Michael Clayton, a preeminent course designer. They often nerded out talking about what makes a golf course work, and what doesn’t.
Like Seth Raynor, Michel pursued a mechanical engineering degree. In 2016, he had an internship at an engineering firm and found all the paperwork to be stultifying. That helped him commit to his golf game, culminating in the Mid-Am victory at Colorado Golf Club. Michel found himself in the United States with some extra time on his hands between tournaments and popped in on a course that Mike DeVries—now Clayton’s partner in their own firm, along with Frank Pont—was overseeing outside of Detroit. Michel was entranced. “It’s pretty impressive to see a golf course built from the ground up,” he says.
Over the next couple of years, Michel continued to struggle with the decision of whether to turn pro. He found the answer in the dirt, or, in this case, the Tasmanian sand. Clayton and Devries were given a glorious site for a build just outside of Hobart, about a four-hour drive from Barnbougle, which put Tasmanian golf on the map with a pair of top 100 courses. (Clayton is the co-designer of Barnbougle Dunes along with Tom Doak.) At the outset of 2022, Michel took a job on the Seven Mile Beach project (below) working as a greenskeeper and apprentice shaper, finally giving up the dream of playing for a living. (The course will open in late 2024.)
“I don’t really have any regrets,” he says. “I see my friends who I grew up playing with, and we have pretty similar ability, and I just see how hard it is out there on the pro tours. Literally the last five years have been culminating in me making a decision to call this golf architecture my profession.”
Clayton has been impressed by his protege. “He has a great eye and great mind for it,” Clayton says. “With his engineering background he has a deep understanding about what is actually required in the construction, as opposed to me—I just wave my arms around.”
Michel still plays the occasional amateur tournament and will always get excited for the Sandbelt, which he calls “a really special event for Australian golf.” He has found it’s easier to perform now that golf is strictly a passion. “It takes the pressure off having this as almost like a hobby now,” he says. “It does feel a bit more how it used to feel, when I was young. The four-footers had gotten harder.”
Following the second round, Michel jumped in his car and drove 21/2 hours to the town of Euroa to check on a unique par-3 course he is overseeing, with six greens and a variety of tees—a private playpen for a gold miner. The long drive wasn’t ideal preparation for the third round of the Sandbelt but is exactly the kind of dedication it takes to break into a wickedly competitive field. “It’s not an easy site because the soil is tough,” says Clayton. “Anybody can move sand around. This is a good test for Lukas.”
Another test awaits. The third round of the Sandbelt moves to Yarra Yarra, with the ultimate examination looming for Thursday’s final round: Royal Melbourne, which many aficionados consider to be the best golf course in the world. Michel will try to focus on making birdies, not swooning at the architecture. And what if this part-time golfer somehow pulls off an unlikely upset? “Unless I just miraculously became the world’s best golfer in the space of six months, then I think I’m on the right path,” Michel says. “If the game just started to become really, really easy, then maybe I’d think about playing again. But it’s still hard. I shot 5 under and I was still feeling it down the stretch. So, building golf courses is still my priority, not playing them.”