NZ may be the most difficult country in the world for ordering/ranking golf courses. There is a clear distinction between the very small number of top tier courses, modern resort-style courses, reasonably maintained but often dull ‘provincial’ courses and ‘country’-style courses. Working out how these overlap is the tricky part!
I’ll throw in my top ten – a hybrid of ‘design quality’ and of where I’d most like to play again – from the 50 or so courses I have bothered to check out on the
North Island:
1. Cape Kidnappers
2. Paraparamu Beach
3. Waverley (At the risk of sounding stupid, a genius routing over rippled and hilly terrain - I must get back in the summer months, the place looks awesome when burnt out.)
4. Titirangi
5. Kaitaia (Let down by some rank holes in the middle of the property and warm season grasses – There are plenty of dunes to the north to fix that!)
6. Ohope (The land at Whakatane up the road may be better, but sat closer to the water on a spit and with short fours like the third and sixteenth this wins easily.)
7. Waipu (Built on the same coastline as Tara’Iti, this place has some potential and offers a different view of the ‘Hen and Chickens’ off the coast.)
8. Kinloch (A pretty quirky number and an array of split fairway holes - A much better effort than the only other one of Jack’s that I have seen in Nebraska.)
9. Waitara (Go straight to the back nine, and include the second, the stretch from eleven to seventeen is cracking with the fifteenth being the pick of the lot! The rest is better served for grazing or crop production.)
10. Wanganui (Easily the best provincial course for my money, and they were talking of building another nine over some interesting land.)
It is quite remarkable how many of NZ’s courses sit right next to some good-to-great land and/or views, mostly on flattish paddock and more resembling of an arboretum! Having said that most courses usually have at least one redeeming to ‘cool’ hole going for them, and more often than not it is the only/best way to differentiate.
[Tom, Have you seen New Plymouth (Ngamatu)? Outside of the beautifully sited thirteenth and fourteenth and the views of the volcano I can’t see the fuss – I’d have Fitzroy as the town’s best!]
