Wellington

You will start your day by playing the newly opened championship course at the historic Royal Wellington Golf club. A member course for many of New Zealand's leading politicians throughout history, it was the first royally endorsed club in New Zealand. A visit to the national museum Te Papa will round out your golf journey from the top to the bottom of the North Island.

They say you can’t beat Wellington on a good day. Well, it’s fair to say Miramar Golf Club’s hard to beat on any day that is more often than not, windy. As the only central golf course in New Zealand’s Capital City and being on the doorstep to Wellington’s International Airport in the eastern suburbs, Miramar Golf Club remains a quality, popular course to join and play for keen Wellingtonians and passing visitors.

The club is 106 years old (opened in 1905) and enjoyed an eventful history on the original course. It hosted various National Amateur Tourneys, including the Mens and Ladies NZ Open Championships and local Amateur Tournaments before the government came knocking on the door. In 1994 the government took a massive chunk of the original Miramar Golf Course land back for the Wellington International Airport expansion. This left Graeme Marsh (relation of the famous Aussie cricketer Rod Marsh) the quirky challenge of redesigning a new 18-hole Miramar course with considerably less land to play with. Yes, the new course (opened in ’95) is now very tight, but this provides a fantastic feature whereby from the modern clubhouse lounge you can practically see every fairway and green on the entire course, bar a couple on the far side.