Courses / Auckland
Te Arai Links - South
Designed by Coore & Crenshaw and opened in 2022, the South Course has quickly established itself among New Zealand’s leading links courses.
Wide fairways move naturally through coastal dunes, with open green complexes encouraging a strong ground game. Its scale is balanced by playability, making it accessible while still engaging.
Wind and angle remain important, but the openness allows for a more forgiving experience. It is a course where architecture feels inseparable from the land.
Ricky Robinson captures the transition from sea and surf to beach, dune and links golf in a single frame. The ninth fairway stretches back towards the par-three eighth green, while the par-five seventh green sits to the right. South Course architects Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw chose much of Te Arai’s oceanfront land and created a course that remains interesting and playable for golfers of every level.
The par-four 11th is one of only two holes on the South Course that plays directly towards the ocean. Its green sits atop a dune, with the land rolling beyond it towards the short par-three 17th.
At the northernmost point of the course sits the drivable par-four 14th. A mid-to-long iron finds the widest part of the fairway and leaves a wedge approach, but the opportunity to drive the 275-yard hole is difficult to ignore.
The par-three eighth is a demanding one-shotter. Its raised green repels misses on every side, while the small pot bunker to the left leaves one of the most difficult recoveries on the hole.
Photo credits: Ricky Robinson