I’m a Golf Journalist. Here's Why New Zealand Is My Top Golf Destination

As an adventure traveler and keen outdoorsman, New Zealand has been circled on my world map for a long time. I always pictured my first trip would be some sort of fjord-trekking, wave-shredding, cross-country-hitchhiking odyssey that spanned multiple seasons and swallowed most of a calendar year. With nothing but a backpack in tow, I’d arrive on a one-way ticket, tick off the famous Milford Track and a few of the country’s other Great Walks, and, only when my visa expired, depart with a beard like Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

When I touched down in Auckland last November after 16-plus hours in the air, I was clean-shaven and my suitcase was stuffed with collared shirts. With me was an oversized travel bag, which armored the only sporting gear required for my inaugural fling with the Southern Hemisphere: golf clubs.

No surfboard, skis, or trekking poles. Not even a fly-fishing rod to cast my line into the country’s legendary trout streams for the chance to snag a record-breaking river rainbow.

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That’s right. I flew 7,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean and the international dateline to play a handful of the two-island nation’s high-ranking golf courses—ones that I haven't been able to shake from my golf-mad mind since I first laid eyes on those bewitching drone shots of Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers nearly a decade ago.

Is New Zealand a hell of a long way to go to hit the links? No question about it. But if you brave the long flight, golf in New Zealand not only lives up to the hype, it transcends it, rewarding golfers with top-shelf tracks in one of the most epic golf corridors on the planet.

For most, this will be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, so it’s best not to leave any stone unturned. Translation: Play the hits and don’t cut any corners. Here are the best courses and lodges to book on a golf trip to New Zealand.

When to Go to New Zealand to Golf

When Americans start throwing Christmas lights on their rooftops, golf season in New Zealand is just starting to warm up. With opposite seasons—our fall is their spring; our winter, their summer—any week from November through April is a great time to dip down to the Southern Hemisphere to tee it up. Keep in mind that if you book your golf trip at the front of this window, you’ll have longer days to go flag-hunting and sneak in 36 holes.

How to Get Around New Zealand

New Zealand is roughly the size of Colorado, and the country’s best courses are spread out over two islands. Your best bet is to fly into Auckland, rent a car, and drive to Te Arai Links first, 90 minutes north of the city. After a few days, head to Kauri Cliffs, three hours north by car.

When you’ve golfed your brains out there, drop your rental rig off at the nearby Kerikeri airport and fly down to Napier on the North Island, where you can hitch a ride up to Cape Kidnappers. Then, fly to Queenstown on the South Island to wrap up your golf trip with a round at Jack’s Point. Now that your golf itch has been scratched, you can seek out a slew of other Kiwi adventures in the “Adventure Capital of the World” (aka Queenstown).

Best Golf Courses to Play in New Zealand and Where to Stay

Stop #1: Te Arai Links (South & North Course)

Location: Tomarata, North Island, New Zealand

Give this traveling golf writer the option to play a singletwo-course resort the rest of his life, and Te Arai Links is the runaway winner. Think Sand Valley’s personality meets Bandon Dunes’ seclusion with a splash of Pebble Beach’s movie-like scenery.

Or, picture a coastal backdrop worthy of its own Instagram filter, where pines and sand dunes commingle beside a portrait of surf that crashes into a spellbinding stretch of North Island shoreline. Now drop the most brilliant constellation of seaside golf holes into the nature-sculpted setting—14 alone on the South Course—done up by the maestros of modern-minimalist course design in Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and voilà, you’ve officially landed in golfing heaven.

The South Course, which debuted in 2022, starts in the forest before tumbling to the sea at the fourth hole, where it nosedives down a rippled fairway to the breezy Pacific Ocean. From there, one of the best links-strolls in the world unfolds across a figure-eight routing that’s nothing short of unadulterated golfing nirvana.

A dozen or so holes could easily lobby for signature-hole status: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 13, 14, 17. The layout is clever and challenging, but equal parts fair and fun: short par-3s, stout par-5s, and drivable par-4s. For most players, one lap around here isn't enough.

Only a few holes at Tom Doak’s North Course play along the water, and yet it already rivals its much-heralded sister course. Golfers start and end their rounds on the Pacific, but the soul of Te Arai’s second 18-hole layout, open since October 2023, dwells in its inland holes, which weave through a forest of pine trees.

Some have likened the topography to Pine Valley (the 13th hole, for example), but Bandon Trails is a far better comp for the ethos of this conifer-dotted playground. Fairways on the North are undulating and generous; green complexes are contoured and slick. There’s no happier place on the course though, perhaps, than the halfway house after the 10th hole. Like your go-to fairway finder off the tee, the fish tacos and margaritas play all day, every day.

Ranked 40th and 36th, respectively, on Golf Digest’s “World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses” list, Te Arai is the kind of place you cross an ocean for. They’re open to the public on alternating days, which means you’re hanging out here for at least two full days. Let’s be honest, though: four days is even better!

Where to Stay at Te Arai

Just like its golf, Te Arai’s on-site resort naturally blends into the property’s super-sandy surrounds. Guests have the option of an ocean-view room; two-bedroom cottage; or a four-bed, four-bath villa, which is perfect for a larger golf group. Pre- and post-round action unfolds at Ric’s restaurant, Te Arai’s central hangout, which rubs shoulders with The Playground, the world’s largest putting green. Kale salad and wood-fired pizza; that’s your order.

Stop #2: Kauri Cliffs

Location: Matauri Bay, North Island, New Zealand

When the late American financier Julian Robertson opened Kauri Cliffs in 2001, little did he know that his decades-long New Zealand love affair would lead to this passion project in the postcard-perfect Bay of Islands. It would also set a high bar for future high-end golf around the country. If someone’s going to pave the way, why not a billionaire who once steered the world’s largest hedge fund?

Much like Robertson’s sophomore project at Cape Kidnappers (more on that in a minute), Kauri Cliffs is one of those places that, even if you don’t think you’ve seen a photo, well, you’ve probably seen a photo. Aerial pictures of the stunning sister properties swirl in the minds of players whether they realize it or not—and most golfers know it.

Kauri Cliffs (ranked 55th in the world) is a ballpark so gargantuan in size (think Kapalua’s Plantation Course on Maui) that its scale can only be believed if it’s seen.

Spread out over 6,000 acres of coastal Northland countryside, a subtropical region studded with forests of old-growth Kauri trees and sweeping vistas of the aqua-tinged Pacific, the David Harman-design is pockmarked by native bush, a network of forced gorge-carries, and ocean panoramas on 15 of its holes, not to mention the most sublime driving range views you’ll hit into above Takou Bay.

At the par-3 seventh hole, a stiff one-shotter on a cliff backdropped by the Cavalli Islands, two requirements await golfers: Take more clubs than you think you need, and walk to the back tees to catch a glimpse of Pink Beach. On the inward nine, you’ll trace the ocean in the opposite direction, with no better spot than the par-5 15th hole, dubbed “Cook’s Hook.” For big hitters, if you stripe one down the pipe on the course’s most intimidating tee shot, you can have a crack at reaching the green in two.

“The true test [of a designer] is whether or not he can use what Mother Nature gave him,” Harman said in March 2003, when Kauri Cliffs hosted a Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf event, “and turn it into something like what you see here.”

“Dave did just that,” Robertson noted. “He took a great piece of land and made an even greater golf course.” Harman passed away in 2005, but the designer-developer exchange can be read on a plaque fixed to the remains of a 50,000-year-old Kauri tree near the 14th tee box.

Speaking of the land, at Kauri Cliffs, you tend to feel like you have the bucket-list course all to yourself.

Where to Stay at Kauri Cliffs

Rosewood Kauri Cliffs is an iconic coastal retreat with farm-to-table dining, a spa, and some of the best ocean views in New Zealand. Away from the course, you’ll be tempted to spend the bulk of your downtime in your super-chic villa or suite, but you shouldn’t. Why? The lodge’s non-golf amenities are too damn good. Want to hang ten? Book a surf day to rip epic Northland swell. Fishing your thing? You can reel in a snapper or kahawai on a Bay of Islands charter. On-property favorites include waterfall hikes and ATV tours to ancient Kauri forests.

Stop #3: Cape Kidnappers

Location: Te Awanga, North Island, New Zealand.

“If Cape Kidnappers were a book,” designer Tom Doak penned in the course’s yardage book, “it would be described as an epic.” Put another way: If Kiwi golf produced a travel brochure, Cape Kidnappers’ drone shot would not only be its bestselling poster child, it would convert non-golfers into certified golf maniacs.

Few courses in the world are set more dramatically than this cliffhanging par-71 design, which debuted in 2004, long before an AI-crazy world might invalidate the believability of its existence. Yes, folks, the photos are real.

Another jaw-dropping Robertson property, Cape Kidnappers sits just south of Napier, a cute coastal town in the Hawkes Bay wine-growing region, and it's routed between a working sheep station and a series of chalk-white cliffs that feel like the edge—or perhaps, the end—of the world, especially on its coastal back nine.

Like an outstretched hand reaching for the sea, holes feature fingerlike fairways that run away from the clubhouse only to dead-end at green complexes perched 500 feet above the Pacific Ocean. Get your cameras ready for the most stunning ocean vista in the game at the 15th hole—dubbed “Pirate’s Plank"—where, as a bonus, you get a front-row seat to one of the world’s largest gannet colonies, seabirds that plunge more than a hundred feet through the air to catch fish in the water.

On an exposed blufftop like Kidnappers, the wind tends to howl. If you get lucky and catch it on a windless day like me, the whisper of lapping ocean waves can be heard in the coves below.

The back nine grabs all the glory at Cape Kidnappers (ranked 15th in the world by Golf Digest), but don’t sleep on the outward nine, arguably the best stretch of golf holes on the property.

Where to Stay at Cape Kidnappers

Lodge rooms at Rosewood Cape Kidnappers, the only on-site resort, are tucked into a Tolkien-esque forest and feature far-reaching views of the property’s 6,000 acres of pastureland, which funnel down to Hawke’s Bay. The restaurant, located inside a farm-style foyer worthy of a home magazine cover shot, plates hyper-local fare and some of the finest lamb and beef in the country. You can mountain bike or visit a winery on a non-golf afternoon, but the hotel’s must-do adventure is the Cape Sanctuary tour through its 2,500 acres of conservation land. If you’re lucky, you might see a Little Penguin or native Kiwi bird, an endangered species that the hotel has successfully protected.

Stop #4: Jack’s Point

Location: Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand

If you’ve ever dreamed of golfing inside of a living, breathing Lord of the Rings backdrop, the alpine landscape ringing Jack’s Point (ranked 73rd), just 20 minutes from Queenstown, make it a must-book South Island tee time.

Settled in a rolling valley at the foot of the snow-dusted Remarkables mountain range, the waterside track wiggles its way through wetlands, sheep paddocks, native flora, and a host of rock outcroppings to the golden-grassed shores of Lake Wakatipu, the country’s longest lake, where a mythical monster named Matau is said to be sleeping at the bottom of the glacier-carved trench.

The thrill of this John Darby layout kicks into high gear atop the sixth tee box, perched on a plateau above the lightning bolt-shaped lake. It’s a mind-bending vista certain to leave you slack-jawed. Before you reach for an iron on the drivable par-4, keep in mind that you crossed an ocean to get here. In other words, satisfy the golf gods and take out the big stick! Legend has it that golfers who lay up after flying 7,000 miles around the world have never slept soundly again. As Gandalf once said: “It is the small things that keep the darkness at bay.”

The seventh hole is the other lakeside stunner. From behind, have your playing partner shoot a video of your tee shot. With Cecil Peak and Queenstown in the distance, the short par-3 plays to an infinity green overlooking the water.

The headliner of Jack’s Point is, without question, the Remarkables, whose alpine views easily top my all-time mountain course rankings. While skydiver after skydiver fall through the thin air in colorful parachutes beneath the mountain’s saw-toothed shadow, golfers have multiple opportunities on the back nine to gawk at their tee shots rising and falling against the mile-high peaks.

Where to Stay at Jack's Point

If you tell me there is a better lakeside resort view in the world than Rosewood Matakauri, I flat out will not believe you. Hugging the banks of Lake Wakatipu and framed by the Remarkables, Cecil Peak, and Walter Peak, this boutique all-inclusive lodge just outside Queenstown oozes luxury without sacrificing Kiwi warmth. From stargazing to ziplining to heli-hiking, there’s not much you can’t do from this luxe alpine basecamp. Come to New Zealand at the front end of spring, and you might just find yourself skiing and golfing in the same day.

New Golf Gear for a Trip to Jack's Point

• Best Lightweight Golf Bag: Jones Rover Stand Bag. Minimalist and sharp-looking, this is the best carry bag on the market.
• Best Golf Shoes: Ecco Golf Biom C4. On my first day, I wore a new brand of golf shoes and my feet were killing me. The next morning, I put my sturdy Ecco’s back in play and my feet were never happier after a 36-hole day. The Bioms remain the most reliable golf shoe in the game.
• Best Rangefinder: Precision Pro Titan Elite. Waterproof, dustproof, with a plethora of cutting-edge smart features, the Titan Elite will be the last rangefinder you ever buy.
• Best New Putter: PXG Bat Attack ZT. Want to keep your putter face stable? Look no further than PXG’s zero-torque technology, designed to steady your stroke—and it does.