kilometers of Pacific Ocean frontage.
Tom Doak’s course design at Tara Iti Golf Club differs from
his only previous work in New Zealand, Cape Kidnappers GC
in Hawkes Bay, where the soil is not sand-based and cliff-side
golf holes sit hundreds of feet above the surf. Tara Iti GC
instead occupies the sandy dunescape along the beach itself.
While this ”links land” environment is rare (and prized across
the golfing world), Doak has worked there before: at Pacific
Dunes in Bandon, Oregon, USA; at Barnbougle Dunes in
Tasmania, Australia; at Sebonack GC on Long Island, just east
of New York City. All maintain places among the world’s top
100 golf courses, according to leading fold magazines. Doak,
club principals and a few special guests had the opportunity
to test-drive Tara Iti during an April sneak preview event.
“What I appreciated most about Tara Iti during this recent
visit was the pacing and rhythm of it. What also struck me
is how much it plays like a links -- and how fun that is. You
can’t take your eye off the ball until it stops rolling, and
C.J. [Kreuscher, the course superintendent] has the playing
surface so tight, the ball is still rolling long after you think it
might stop.
Tara Iti GC is named for the New Zealand fairy tern, a bird
species that has spent several decades on the country’s
critically endangered list. Indeed, the club logo features
a fairy tern in flight, and club founders have established a
charitable trust -- the Te Arai and Mangawhai Shorebirds
Trust -- to conserve and protect fairy terns and other
threatened, at-risk shorebirds on the Te Arai property and
in the surrounding area.
Get In Touch
www.taraiti.com
Volume 3 • Issue 28
33