Our resident golf writer Phil Hamilton tours the nation’s village greens.
Golf is big in Aotearoa. By some metrics, we have the second-most courses per capita after Scotland, the birthplace of the sport. Flash resort courses continue to be built at pace and to suck up overseas attention, but the heart of golf in this country lies in the small clubs. There’s one in almost every town. They’re the sort of places where you’ll find sheep doing the hard yards keeping down fairways and volunteers grooming the greens, where you can play in singlet and jandals, where you can have a sneaky smoke or cheeky microdose and no-one complains, where you might still get change out of a $20 note after paying to play a round.
Former US President Barack Obama chose Kauri Cliffs to tee off against former Prime Minister John Key (green fee: $649 for international guests), but we reckon he would have had just as much fun at any of these options. Prepare to brush up on your golf lingo. Fore!
Waverley
Waverley Golf Club is just outside the South Taranaki town of the same name. Sitting about six kilometres from the coast, it has wonderful natural topography sculpted by strong wind on black volcanic sand and a population of sheep to keep the kikuyu grass fairways down.
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Thanks to the cunning design of the late Ernie Southerden, who learnt his trade at a classic links courses in Rye, England, its holes are some of the country’s best and most unusual. Few resort courses can boast as many quality holes, and they charge considerably more than the $20 green fee here. The club’s hospitality is also unmatched – last visit, we finished on dark and found four locals waiting, playing cards in the bar so we didn’t miss out on a beer. They’d put four pies in the warmer for us too. One of the golf world’s great bargains.
Roxburgh
Central Otago has New Zealand’s densest collection of quality courses, and Roxburgh can get lost in the crowd. It doesn’t help that the one hole that can be seen from the main road into town is also one of the flattest. But this first hole is far from an accurate representation of Roxburgh, which serves up a unique golfing experience. For one, the course is laid over valleys and ridges littered with clumps of schist; it’s like playing on the set of an old-school Western.
Nearby Arrowtown has a well-deserved reputation for being short and quirky, but Roxburgh is both shorter and quirkier. There are six par 3s ranging from 177m all the way down to 78m, and a host of risk-reward short par 4s (often the most fun holes on any course); no less than half a dozen clock in at less than 300m. With all the par 5s reachable in two shots too, Roxburgh offers plenty of birdie chances. Be warned, though, rocks can be more dangerous than bunkers and a bad ricochet may spell the end for your ball.
Tākaka
In a country with an excess of golf courses in spectacular spots (check out the backdrop to the Obama-Key game to see what I mean), this course can hold its head high. Set by the beach at Pohara,
Tākaka looks out across Golden Bay towards Farewell Spit; the view alone is worth the $30 green fee.
It’s stunning, but the main attraction is the quality of the play stuffed into just nine holes. Courses usually have a couple of highlights, but Tākaka is a succession of them, making it comfortably the best nine-hole course in the South Island. It was designed by Harold Babbage, a Waikato cattle breeder turned golf architect who specialised in links courses, with Waipu, Muriwai, Greenacres and Ōtākou also in his portfolio. Classic links courses are built over sandy dunes that “link” the arable land to the beach. Golfers love them because of the sand base, which allows the ball to be played along the ground, and the lovely contours, which make it fun to do so.
With this in mind, Babbage believed in fitting a course to the land, not the land to the course. At Tākaka, he left all the lovely undulations and complemented them with a wonderful and varied set of greens. The punchbowl third and plateau ninth are among the best short holes in the country, while the fourth is a classic risk-reward driveable par 4. It is not all short holes either – the par 4 second is a stern test along the coastline with a blind second, while the sixth is a strategic par 5 that rewards those who can play close to the estuary. Stay alert. This is the type of course that entices you into getting aggressive chasing birdies, then punishes misses with bogeys (or worse).
Ōtākou
This little nine-hole gem is just 30 minutes from the centre of Dunedin, but it feels a world away. Follow the winding road out onto the Otago Peninsula, past Portobello and towards the Albatross colony; Ōtākou is tucked away out of sight in a secluded spot beside the harbour and it plays over some lovely linksland.
The first couple of holes are pretty basic with a few too many trees, but the holes that play east over the better undulations are very good, particularly the stretch from the western corner back to the clubhouse. It starts with a wonderful mid-length par 3 over small humps to a punchbowl, followed by three quality par 4s. The seventh is a demanding dogleg with a gully that disciplines those who can’t resist taking the direct line, while the eighth has a great blind drive. But the best is the last hole, a tricky driveable short par 4. Out of bounds is on the left, and those laying up need to play towards it for a sight of the green, which is cleverly tucked in behind a dune.
Tarras
Few courses would have as many people driving past without stopping. Set on the side of State Highway 8, on the main route from Christchurch to Queenstown and Wānaka, Tarras doesn’t look like much from the road. But those brief glimpses from car windows don’t do justice to its charms.
The course is laid out over a working farm, and for the first two-and-a-half holes it feels like it (including the wee fences around the greens to keep the sheep off the putting surfaces). But it gets better and better. The fourth is an interesting shortish par 4 with two possible routes to an elevated green set behind lumps of schist. The fifth plays down a lovely valley, the sixth to a treacherous green set against the road. There are two holes on the other side of the highway, a quality par 5 and then a good long par 3, before crossing back again for the final flourish: a cracking short par 4 with the busy main road all the way down the left side.
Tokanui
Tucked between the Pacific Ocean and Toetoes Estuary at Fortrose, Tokanui is the southernmost course on the South Island. The wind whistles in here, and there is the sense of playing at the edge of the world, particularly on the higher holes that look south towards Stewart Island.
As befits the hilly site, the course is wild and unconventional, beginning with the exhilarating first hole that calls for a tee shot over (yes, over) the road down to a mess of linksy humps below. The green is in the bottom corner of the course, and from there you need to work your way back up, beginning with an unusual and tough par 3. The sixth is another original with the road in play again, and the seventh a driveable par 4 over undulating linksland. It all ends with a nice short hole looking out over the estuary. Even better, with just 27 members at Tokanui, you are more than likely to have the course to yourself.
Scargill
Sometimes a course boasts one hole so unusual it is worth playing for that hole alone. Scargill has one such hole. The sixth. A short detour from State Highway 1 between Amberley and Cheviot in North Canterbury, Scargill splays over attractive rolling farmland. At first glance Scargill looks like a typical country course, with the first hole setting off down a narrow avenue of trees. Halfway along, though, it springs the first surprise, ducking left and down two levels for a unique and memorable opener. But it’s the sixth that’s the real eye-opener. From an elevated tee you play to an angled fairway with a ridge across it about 80-metres from the green, making the approach totally blind.
It’s an uncomfortable tee shot followed by an even more uncomfortable second to a small target with trouble long and right – a fascinating and unconventional hole that packs an awful lot into just 300 metres.
Phil Hamilton
