Sir Michael Hill owns the Hills golf course in Queenstown. Photo / Michael Craig
New Zealand is home to some of the most stunning privately owned golf courses in the world. Jane Phare looks at who owns them and why, new courses being developed and talks to an expert who helped create many of them.
Start digging into some of the country’s most exclusive golf courses and one name keeps popping up: John Darby. He’s like clover, sprouting everywhere where grass is involved and, in particular, grass on which wealthy people play golf.
He takes the ribbing good naturedly. He’s quite proud of the 40-year career that has connected the Darby name to some of the country’s most elite courses.
He doesn’t boast but there is a hint of pride in his voice, affection even, when asked about the golf courses and resorts to which his name is forever attached: Millbrook near Arrowtown; Jack’s Point, nestled between the Remarkables and Lake Whakatipu near Queenstown; The Hills, Sir Michael Hill’s golf course near Arrowtown; the uber-exclusive Tara Iti course at Mangawhai and the neighbouring Te Arai Links north and south courses, partnering with Ric Kayne in the early days; Formosa in Auckland; Omaha Beach Golf Club north of Auckland, extending it from a nine-hole course to an 18; and Clearwater Golf Club in Christchurch.
Darby Partners, formed in 1998 when Darby went out on his own, still owns land holdings at Clearwater – now owned by shareholders and members – and Darby is an equity owner and land owner at Tara Iti. He hasn’t built a house there yet; too busy, he says. And he still owns Jack’s Point where his offices are based, because he wants to see it maintained as a top-ranking golf course.
“For that, you really do need to own it.”
These days it’s a family business. Darby’s eldest daughter Ella is an architect and works closely with her father, while twin sons Tom and Zak, qualified in law and finance, also work in the business, including overseeing Amisfield winery, property holdings and golf management.
Ask rich listers and high rollers why they decided to build a golf course and they’ll say something vague like it seemed a good idea at the time. Those on the outside will argue private golf courses are an elite playground for the rich. Those on the inside argue that they want to leave the land in better shape than when they bought it, through native planting, wetlands, open spaces, and trails. Some will make money out of the venture, usually by selling off residential house lots, others won’t. The good operators want to leave a legacy.
Some build golf courses simply because they want one. Yachting legend and keen golfer Sir Russell Coutts has built an 18-hole Greg Turner-designed golf course on Bailey Station, his 41ha property on the Crown Terrace above Arrowtown. However it’s unlikely members of the public will get the chance to play it.
Ryan Brandeburg partners with former pro-golfer Turner to oversee the building of high-end privately owned golf courses, including two current projects at Muriwai and Hogan’s Gully in Arrowtown. He points to what the late American hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson achieved at Kauri Cliffs in Northland and Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay.
The courses are now owned by his three sons, Alex, Jay and Spencer Robertson, who have vowed to continue to support their father’s legacy.
The Cape Kidnapper’s course is surrounded by a 7km predator fence, protecting native birds including kiwi and takahē, and providing a seabird sanctuary.
The Cape Kidnapper’s driveway alone cost $10 million, Brandeburg says.
“You don’t build a $10m driveway thinking you’re going to pay it off with green fees. You build it because you can, and Hawke’s Bay wins, New Zealand wins.“
By winning he means protection of the land as open space and the wildlife, and the economic benefits in terms of employment and tourism.
Rich lister Gary Lane, who made much of his fortune from food manufacturing companies and health supplements, bought the Wairākei golf course near Taupō with a couple of business partners in 1996 after the Japanese owner was forced into a mortgagee sale. But his initial business plan changed after reading about endangered kiwi and the threat from predators.
He bought his partners out in 2008 and set about creating a wildlife sanctuary, spending millions on a 5km-long, 2m-high predator fence around the 150ha property, with a hood to stop rats, stoats and possums from climbing over the top. The pests inside were eradicated and 30,000 trees were planted. Now the Wairākei Golf Course & Sanctuary echoes to loud birdsong, tame fallow deer graze and pheasants roam the property. Wairākei also hosts a kiwi hatchery run by Save the Kiwi, producing about 100 eggs a year. And it’s home to “retired” takahē couples that arrive through the Department of Conservation.
“So we’re an incubator for the kiwi and a retirement home for the takahē,“ Lane says.
But some of the elderly takahē get their second wind once they arrive at the sanctuary. Eight chicks have been born there over the years, released into the wild once they’re six months old.
Now golfers come as much for the wildlife as they do for the golf. About two-thirds of those who play at Wairākei each year are visitors, not members.
Lane is proud of what has been achieved but thinks the expense of predator-proofing large areas of land puts others off. When Cyclone Gabrielle roared through the region in February last year, huge trees crashed down and destroyed sections of the fence. Although the broken parts were fixed within 48 hours, predators got in which meant trapping had to start again. The cyclone destroyed between 1500 and 2000 trees in the sanctuary, a clean-up Lane describes as “expensive”.
But the cost is worth it, he says.
“You can actually hear and see the predators going around the fence, they can smell their dinner inside and they can’t get at it.”
Lane divides his time between New Zealand, where he lives in Herne Bay, and the UK and Europe, fitting in a couple of rounds of golf a week.
“I leave Auckland when the winter′s coming and I leave Europe when the winter’s coming there.”
He’s a member of the exclusive Sunningdale Golf & Country Club in London and has played on courses all around the world. But ask him his favourite course and the answer is, “Wairākei of course”.
“If you wander round a golf course there (UK and Europe) it’s sad. You hardly ever see or hear a bird. It’s horrific.”
Commercial and industrial property developer John Sax had already created Treetops Lodge & Estate, set in 1000ha of native forest in Rotorua, when he saw the ailing Kinloch Golf Club course up for sale in 2011. Sax was an early environmental adopter back in the 1980s, planting 250,000 native trees, and building the lodge and furniture from fallen timber on the property.
The golf course was a 50-minute drive away, a 267ha “North Island alpine” property overlooking Lake Taupō and sporting an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus signature course. So he bought it.
“It just seemed a logical thing to do.”
Architect Andrew Patterson, whose name is stamped on several stylish golf clubrooms, designed a luxury lodge and 20 villas, working with bespoke interior designer Virginia Fisher, whose name was similarly stamped on Huka Lodge, Kauri Cliffs, Eichardt’s Hotel and Rosewood Matakauri lodge in Queenstown, and Millbrook near Arrowtown.
Thirteen years later Sax, who lives in the stately Florence Court in Epsom, is ready for the next stage of development at Kinloch. This year he will start to sell 180 residential lots on the estate which will come with full golfing rights for the owners.
The 20 villas are now on separate unit titles and will be sold, but will stay in the hotel pool, with plans to build 20 more. Owners will have golfing rights and use of the villas for one month a year. A lap pool, gym and kids’ centre will be added to the lodge facilities.
Sax believes that any owner should leave a property in better condition than when they took over.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s an urban environment or rural environment. At the end of the day buildings are for people and the better you can create the environment within a building or in local countryside everybody wins out of that. “
John Darby agrees. “When you own a golf course you really are just the custodian and watch out if you think otherwise because there are a lot of people who will offer up comment.”
That rings true with the members at Sir Michael Hill’s private course, The Hills, near Arrowtown. Members were alarmed by an announcement of a joint venture partnership between Hill and his daughter Emma, and US finance guru Ric Kayne and Jim Rohrstaff who developed Tara Iti and Te Arai Links at Mangawhai. One possibility under consideration is an equity club whereby members would buy a share of The Hills. But some current members fear that might price them out of their membership.
Like other courses in the South Island, The Hills offers spectacular mountain views but it is the impressive collection of sculptures that sets it apart.
The 16 sculptures range from giant dragonflies suspended over a lake, enormous iron Clydesdales grazing, and a large ferocious pack of more than 100 snarling wolves encircling a warrior. A favourite with golfers is a 3.6m tall bronze sculpture of a man sitting on a three-legged stool, clutching a bag on his lap, gazing at the view.
Emma Hill says it’s too early to announce plans for The Hills’ future which need to be worked through with Kayne and Rohrstaff. However the sculptures will remain, she says.
Although Rohrstaff will be spending more time in the South Island this year, his focus is still very much on Tara Iti, where he is an equity member and has a home, and Te Arai Links. Now his two teenage sons, aged 14 and 17, are working in the business during the summer.
“My rule in my house is when you turn 14 years old you get a job.”
A list of Aotearoa’s wealthy, and some from overseas, own a share in Tara Iti, and the Te Arai Links north and south courses are owned by Kayne and Rohrstaff.
Kayne and his wife Suzanne have built a house at Tara Iti looking out to the Hen and Chickens Islands, the Mokohinau Islands, Aotea Great Barrier and the Poor Knights. Architects like Andrew Patterson and John Irving create cutting-edge multi-million dollar homes, including a new one being built for Zuru’s Nick Mowbray and his fiancee Jaimee Lupton at Te Arai. The Tara Iti house sites are all sold although Rohrstaff says a few new sites will become available later this year.
Looking back on 40 years of creating golf courses and resorts, Darby is pleased to see an emphasis on native planting, wetlands and open spaces, often necessary for approval purposes.
“It is a big part of golf these days but it always was in our kind of programme.”
In addition, he feels strongly that golf courses should be built so that golfers can play them, not just an elite few.
“It sounds pretty obvious but the trend in the [United] States for high-end golf courses is that very few get to play them and I think often that is not the best use of the land.”
Darby understands the need for different business models that support golf courses and would like to see a balance maintained in New Zealand. He’s a member of the closed membership Tara Iti but is pleased that a course at Te Arai Links is available to the public every day.
The first course Darby worked on was Millbrook Golf Course near Arrowtown, in the late 1980s. One of the charms of Millbrook today is that it’s not gated - unless American presidents are staying there. Locals and visitors can walk in the grounds, have a meal or a drink, and they can play a casual round of golf without being a member.
The idea was a “turn-key” development, with Eiichi Ishii as a founding investor, that would include an 18-hole golf course, club house, restaurants and accommodation. The grounds, with its approach avenue flanked by towering trees planted in 1867, and charming old mill buildings, were already picturesque.
The Ishii family took over ownership of Millbrook in the 1990s, famously hosting US President Bill Clinton in 1999, and continued to develop privately-owned homes and build a second 18-hole golf course. Millbrook is now run by Eiichi’s son Gota.
Although Millbrook has been a success, Darby discovered early on in his career that breathtaking scenery sometimes isn’t enough. His first taste of the golf resort world was in the early 1980s, earning his golfing apprenticeship working with Arnold Palmer on an ambitious project at Walter Peak Station, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu. Billed as a world-class luxury resort, it was to have an 18-hole golf course, a hotel, a village, and 1000 apartments and chalets.
Accessible only by boat – the TSS Earnslaw and other tourist vessels still visit daily - the project never got off the ground.
Golf courses aren’t easy to manage, Darby says. Without support, ongoing investment and water, they will founder. He points to run down Gulf Harbour at Whangaparāoa, historic issues with Formosa golf course at Beachlands, and Carrington, plagued by employment issues and facing liquidation.
This month Keep Whangaparāoa’s Green Spaces (KWGS) members issued a statement deploring the state of Gulf Harbour, saying the golf course was overgrown and weed-infested. The main clubhouse had been vandalised, and was covered in graffiti, “much of it “gross and offensive”. They want the owner, developer Greg Olliver, to fix it.
Formosa, too, had become rundown and former owners were accused of sewage dumping. The NZ Super Fund and Russell Property Group bought the property in 2020 and have since reinvested in the resort, now managed by Australian hotel chain Rydges. Future plans include reducing the 18-hole course to a nine-hole and building 3000 apartments and terraced houses on the 255ha site.
But for every failed or struggling course, a new one is being built as New Zealand increasingly becomes a golfing mecca for visitors in an industry now worth more than $400 million annually.
Here are some in the pipeline:
Glendhu Golf Course
John Darby is developing a new 18-hole championship golf course at Glendhu Bay overlooking Lake Wānaka, due to open in 2025. The resort will include a clubhouse, lakeside facilities, visitor accommodation, 42 homes, and 20km of public trails.
The Glendhu Station has been farmed by Bob and Pam McRae since the 1960s. They dreamed of developing the land into something special and partnered with Darby Partners, in 2002. Ten years ago Darby bought 200 hectares of land from the McRaes and forged ahead to create the golf course and resort. The McRraes retain the rest of the farm and the Glendhu Bike Park.
Darby will keep ownership of Glendhu Golf Course, adding to Jack’s Point. Since the Millbrook days, he always intended to buy, develop, sell and move on but somehow he’s ended up owning more fairways than he intended, he says.
Hogan’s Gully golf course
Queenstown tourism royalty Sir John Davies and his son Mike are behind an 18-hole championship golf course, residential homes and visitor accommodation planned at Hogan’s Gully near Arrowtown. Greg Turner has designed the course with Andrew Patterson designing the buildings. The multi-million-dollar project, which will include a cycling and walking trail around the resort, is well under way with the course expected to open in 2027.
Gibbston Valley
Former Prime Minister John Key and Black Caps captain Brendon McCullum are among golfing high rollers who have bought property at a new golfing resort at the Central Otago winery Gibbston Valley.
The project is owned jointly by US-based Phil Griffith, lodge and spa CEO Greg Hunt and Gibbston Valley Winery.
A Greg Turner-designed nine-hole golf course overlooking the Kawarau River is under way and will be ready for play next summer. The luxury development includes a country club, gym, pool, restaurant, residential housing and high-country trails spread across 400ha of land.
Muriwai Downs
Chinese billionaire Zhaoxi Lu is behind the creation $113m golf course, luxury lodge and a sports academy on a 500ha farm at Muriwai west of Auckland. The 19-hole golf course has been designed by Californian Kyle Phillips and is scheduled to open in 2027. Lu made his money through the giant e-commerce site Alibaba, working with its co-founder Jack Ma. Forbes estimates Lu to be worth $1.6 billion.
Douglas Links
Xero co-founder and golfer Hamish Edwards wants to build an 18-hole links golf course and resort on a 107ha coastal farm block at Ōhau, south of Levin. He’s currently waiting on a decision from the Environment Court after applying for resource consent.
The Horowhenua District Council approved plans for the golf course and clubhouse but the Horizons Regional Council declined permission for earthworks due to opposition from one local iwi. Two other iwi are supportive of Edwards’ development however a third, Ngāti Tukorehe, are opposed.
Edwards, who has named Douglas Links after his father’s first name, says the course will attract an estimated 15,000 golfers annually and will be accessible to all levels of golfers. The project has received wide support in Horowhenua, he says.
“People will be able to afford the green fees and they’ll be able to enjoy what is true links golf in a New Zealand setting.”
He describes the development as a legacy project rather than a straight business investment. The $60m project will include the eradication of weeds and introduced exotics like pines, and the establishment of more than 185,000 native plants.
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