Augusta Lodge - a golfer's dream at Mt Maunganui

By COLIN MOORE

Brenda BrettKelly's chip shot to the eighth green at the famed Mt Maunganui Golf Course was as sweet as any Tiger Woods struck at Augusta.

The shot didn't win her a green jacket; it went out of bounds. But it did win Brenda and her husband Chris, Augusta, the Lodge.

It happened like this. The BrettKellys had leased their Mt Maunganui motel and were looking for a new tourism venture in the Bay of Plenty, perhaps related to their passion for golfing.

They were still searching when Brenda, a beginner golfer, sliced her second shot on the par-four eighth hole.

The ball landed 20m from the green in the backyard of one of the few older houses left on Oceanbeach Rd, Mt Maunganui's golden mile.

A nice old lady tending her garden picked up the ball and handed it over the fence to an apologetic Brenda. They exchanged pleasantries. And chatted.

The lady and her husband had lived in the house for 17 years and wanted to sell. They were nearing 80 and wanted a small house with no garden.

It didn't take the BrettKellys long to add up the scorecard. The site had a view of half the golf course and across the street was a public access to 27km of unbroken beach and the surf of the Pacific Ocean.

You don't waste those sort of opportunities and Brenda and Chris, a former Taupo butcher who did nicely out of venison exporting and selling deer by-products in Hong Kong for Chinese medicines, have made the most of them.

Augusta, the Lodge, named after the historic Augusta National Golf Course in Georgia, was two years in the planning and building and is as much the essence of perfection as Tiger Woods' swing.

It's based on the American neo-Colonial style of the old clubhouse at the Georgia course with generous-sized rooms and tall ceilings.

The entrance to the five-room boutique hotel is in sumptuous Italian marble. It leads to an elegant dining room and a huge guest lounge just metres away from the eighth green.

An open fire features at one end of the lounge with the other end a wall-to-ceiling bookshelf of fine volumes.

Bi-folding doors between the lounge and dining room open to create a large entertaining area from the swimming pool in the forecourt through to a picket fence on the golf course boundary.

The double bedrooms are luxurious and vast, two of them can take extra beds so as to sleep a party of four people, and are named after top golf courses.

I stayed in Gulf Harbour which has a kingsize, four-poster bed. The picture windows at the end of the room led to a small balcony. In the morning I drew the curtains and watched early risers two putt the green.

The bathrooms are as big as an average bedroom and include a spa bath. And if that wasn't enough to make me feel utterly pampered, I couldn't find any sign of a payment form in the room minibar.

Breakfast was superbly presented, continental or cooked. Fresh orange juice, fruit and bacon and eggs - my favourite choice in such places - was every bit as good as the surroundings.

Even Tiger Woods would be happy to hang his jacket at Augusta, the Lodge.

Bed and breakfast costs $350 a night for two people.

Contact:

Augusta Lodge

Ph: (07) 575 9677

e-mail: enquiry@augustalodge.co.nz