A few thoughts about Kauri. Played it in Dec of '04. The wind was howling on my 2 plays. Basically, hard right to left off the 1st tee. The front side is very exposed to the wind, 10-13 are rather protected, and then you have to strap it on against the wind the rest of the way. 14-17 were hard right to left and 18 was dead into the wind coming home. It really put a premium on striking the ball solidly. There are some first rate holes there - 4 is a terrific gambling par 5. 5 is a tough forced carry par 3. 7 is a reminder of 16 at Cypress and the view is equally as pretty. 8 is a gorgeous uphill par 5 that is more about the view than the shot values, although I did enjoy it a lot. Of the valley holes I only responded to 13 which requires a well struck and placed drive and then a mid to long iron approach that if poorly struck from a hanging lie ends up in trouble. The stretch from 14 -17 while having similar dynamics in terms of trouble left and downhill right to left shaping feels like you are playing very different holes, and they are all very, very good. As to John Kirk's note about bail out right, the wind is pretty fierce accross the hole so any shot not ripped at the right side ends up in trouble on the left. There wasn't really a bail-out scenario in that wind, you really had to golf your ball to stay out of the cliffs left. 18 has a very good final tee shot with a big forced carry with the ideal line carrying the left bunker, but that is a brutal line into the big wind. I remember the greens as being perfectly conditioned, with appropriate challenges for putting and chipping, but they were not in the same design class as Kidnappers which were World Class.
On a whole, this is a magnificent place to play golf. Very challenging, extremely beautiful(only CPC and Augusta surpass it in that category IMO), and one of the best hotel/lodge experiences in the whole world. The Robertsons are remarkable hosts who take personal care of all of their guests. They made sure to say hello to everyone at drinks before dinner in the 1 big dining room. They invited all the guests to a picnic down on Pink Beach which was stunning as there was no visible sand, just micro sized sea-shells, which look pink. Never seen anything like that. They suggested that we stay a day longer at KC as the wind was too strong down at CK for golf or for landing in Napier, so they arranged for everything and then told my wife and I to be downstairs in an hour as there were some people who were going to look at the Kauri trees and they said we had to go see them. Well, we got into a surburban for what we thought was a drive to the trees, but it was actually a short ride over to their helicopter for a flight to a resort over on 90 Mile Beach where we landed on the grass next to the water, walked thru the hotel and jumped in a van for the 15 minute drive to the Kauri trees. Tane Mahuta was indeed a sight to see. Kind of NZ's equivalent of the Redwoods in the US.
One last thought, we met a great variety of people from all over the world there and not all were golfers. We met a couple from Sydney who were not golfers that just came for a weekend because they had heard KC was a great Lodge experience. We then hooked up with them when we got to Sydney a couple of weeks later and they remain good friends whom we see each year. Kauri Cliffs is truly a magical kind of place with a definate Top 100 in the world golf course. Don't miss it if you get the chance.