XLIX: Te Arai Links (South)
As a sport, golf’s greatest advantage lies in the variance of its venues – no other game unearths such entertainment, enjoyment and head scratching predicaments from the grounds on which it is played. The game’s most endearing grounds move with variety and a delightful randomness, a blend of the rambunctious and the discrete. When a spectacular site is routed well it takes players on a journey and delivers the unmistakable feeling of adventure. As golfers are pushed and pulled around the property an inimitable sense of place is stamped on the round- a magical link between golf and the setting it traverses.
This soul-fulfilling sweet spot is where the magic of golf travel is felt the hardest, and at its highest echelon lies the South Course at Te Arai Links.
Few more beautiful settings exist in the game
If you asked Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to dream up their ideal site to route a course, they would have been hard pressed to come up with something more idyllic than what they were handed at Te Arai Links. A sandy pine forest loaded with a smorgasbord of landforms and contours, along miles of uninterrupted Pacific Ocean frontage – the world’s most extraordinary canvas for golf. It’s the sheer variety of these landforms which bring the South’s golf to life today, as hulking dunes, cavernous dells and winding valleys scatter the property, the constant wavy fairway ripples the pulse of the property.
Ripples and rumbles of the South Course
A great property only delivers great golf with a masterful routing and Coore & Crenshaw have crafted an intoxicating seaside jaunt which maximises the terrain. The long, narrow routing wastes little of the prime seaside real estate, with no less than sixteen holes catching glimpses of the water and eight running flush up against it.
Winding through the pines, playing up and over dune ridges and through deep ravines, the routing tackles the terrain in a wide range of ways with blind shots and uneven lies finding golfers always intrigued and constantly off balance.
Big slopes and broad runways
With wall-to-wall fescue, Te Arai Links plays wonderfully firm and fast, watching balls skate its contours one of the South’s greatest joys. Built with enjoyment at the forefront with fast fairways and ample width on offer, the South is a classic case of ‘easy bogey hard birdie’. Each fairway has a target within it where the most favourable angle is found, whilst the golfer on the wrong side faces severe contours or nasty bunkers junking up their approach.
The South’s targets within targets brings just enough vagueness to its strategy and a multitude of pathways to the hole - a complex puzzle without a linear solution. Imagination and a decent helping of luck is at the core of success – just the way links golf should be played.
The Opening Four – Anticipation
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Genius often begins in a way least expected and with such ample coastline on offer, there is little doubt most architects would show their hand early with an opening stretch along the water, not Coore & Crenshaw. By carving the opening trio through the pines and tackling the two most severe sections of the property with quality and grace, golfers find themselves deep in the realms of anticipation. Hearing the crashing waves, feeling the sea breeze and tasting its salty presence, with each step the stature of the impending collision with the Pacific continues to grow – the art of the South’s routing.
The opening tee sets a wonderful scene
The opening par five rises sharply, its wide fairway threading through the sandhills and climbing to a heaving green site amongst the dunes. The opener is without doubt a big golf hole, but not until reaching the second tee does the golfer truly grasp the South’s scale. Plunging downhill between sandy blowouts and towering pines to a characteristically broad landing zone, there is a vagueness to its strategy but the aggressive line up the right is rewarded with the cleanest angle.
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With 45 minutes of anticipation bottled up, cresting the hill from the third green to the fourth tee is one of golf’s spine-tingling transitions. Finally, the ocean glistens and the waves crash in the distance as the fairway tumbles and snakes right down the hill, bleeding toward the water. With two thrilling shots in the midst of a wondrous setting, the golfer’s anticipation melts to intoxication.
The fourth - one of golf's most magical reveals
The Seaside Stars - Intoxication
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For the next three hours, golfers are overwhelmed by the joys of the South’s long, narrow site with the Pacific a constant companion. There may not be a more visually spectacular run of holes on the planet, the natural diversity of their puzzles relentlessly engaging and endlessly entertaining.
The Fifth
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Par threes are often shoehorned in to connect a pair of great two-shotters, but tucked into the corner of the property the fifth serves more than one master, linking two of the finest par fours on the property with one of the most spectacular shots of the loop. Playing straight out to sea, the severely turtle-backed green makes an elusive target and the tiny funnel bunker at its front a wonderful catcher.
The fifth - a gorgeous link
The Sixth
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The famous links of the UK tackle dunes in a range of ways, with many of the most endearing shots playing up and over blindly. At the sixth tee, staring blindly at a ridge and heaving dune, the golfer has no inkling of a line made all the more hair raising by anything right of the target finding the beach. In truth, the most fruitful line is over the left sandhill which opens up a view of the punchbowl green approached blindly from the right side.
The blind line of charm is found over the heart of the left trap
The Seventh
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Hard against the beach, the fairway of the par-five seventh wraps around the sand in a cape like fashion – a classic question from the tee of how much a golfer dares bite off. Bumbling with random contours, the fairway falls to a wild green which, like the majority of the South’s putting surfaces, embraces a running approach.
The daunting view from the seventh tee
The Fourteenth
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The South’s scattering of thrills is headlined by the tee-ball at the fourteenth. Downhill and driveable at 300-yards from the daily tees, the fourteenth is one of the routing’s busiest and most tempting holes. Like all of the best short fours the risk of attacking the green is loaded with consequence, flanked by a deep sandy trench, a dramatic drop-off on its right and a nasty little pot in its heart.
The smooth chaos of the fourteenth
The Sixteenth
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In the heart of a dramatic section of the property, the Sixteenth tees off the top of a towering dune down into a valley, leaving a steep uphill approach to a dune-top surface. In spite of its spectacular topography, it’s the rumbunctious severity of the multi-sectioned green complex which headlines the hole, bisected by a dramatic ridge and with a back left tier looming over the lower front portion.
The drama of the sixteenth
The Seventeenth
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The South’s postcard hole and for good reason, at 120-yards the spectacular seventeenth falls in the category of a ‘fearsome flick’. Its narrow green carved out by encroaching bunkers harkens to the ethos of the famous Sandbelt surfaces, and straddling the coastline it stands raw and exposed to the elements. Though short, it is one of the South’s most exacting swings of the round.
One of the game's great fearsome flicks
The Eighteenth
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There could be no more fitting finish to the South course than the big, bold and beautiful eighteenth as it sweeps around the rugged coast. Like many holes, there are a multitude of options and ample opportunity to score, but missing in the wrong spots requires a heroic recovery.
A visual feast at eighteen to close the loop
One would be hard pressed to find a golfer walking off the eighteenth green of the South course not hankering for a return to the first tee. Owing to its magical setting, the diversity of compelling golfing terrain, firm turf and ample width there is no doubt that the South is one of the most fun golf courses in the world.
The combination of fairway width, large undulating greens and exposure to the elements drives incredible flexibility in the layout, where moving the pins and a switch in the wind completely changes the course and promotes endless ways to get the ball down. Across a truly incredible site for golf, Coore & Crenshaw have delivered a layout befitting of its setting.