In the grand tradition of the finest links courses of Scotland and Ireland, Muriwai is at first not much to look at. You turn off the main road and head for the seaside town of Muriwai Beach. Driving slowly along the dirt, bound for the golf club’s front gate, the links gradually come into view.
Wedged between forest-covered hills to the east and high sand dunes behind the beach to the west, Muriwai ticks all the boxes necessary to be considered a wonderful links layout. Although just a 45-minute drive from Auckland’s CBD, it feels isolated. The only reason why it is here is the quality of the golfing land it covers. Don’t expect a lush landscape all year round, for there is no fairway watering, adding to the Scottish links look and feel of the place.
The highlight is the quality and variety of its holes. Muriwai is a course of two contrasting nines. The outward half is sparse, with wide fairways framed by long, wispy, wild grasses. Most of the holes on this nine rely on the wind to defend par, which is seldom a problem, for calm and windless days are rare around these parts. The task is always to find the correct playing line that will leave you with the most straightforward approach to the small and relatively flat greens.
If you make a good score on the front nine, the trick is then to hang on to it through the more challenging and undulating back nine. Outcrops of ti-tree and long clusters of pines narrow the fairways and swallow mishits. Laid over and between sand dunes, this inward half is Muriwai at its best. Pot bunkers dot the landscape, mounds and hollows surround the greens, and rippled fairways present a variety of lies for approach shots.
If one criticism can be made, it is that the four par-fives on the course run in the same direction. On a day when the wind favours from the south, each of the par-five greens comes into range within two shots. When the wind turns, they become four tough assignments where par is a good score.
Perhaps the best par-five is the 452-metre 12th. Known as ‘Fred’s Alpe’, it begins with one of the toughest tee shots of the round. A pine forest starts a few metres left of the fairway and extends all the way to the green. Players looking to shorten the hole will need to hug this left side to make the green reachable in two. Any approach shot, whether it’s a long second shot or a short pitch with your third, must be precise. Ringing the green are five pot bunkers, and the closely mown slopes beside these bunkers make chipping difficult.
Murawai’s hardest driving hole is the 15th, a 395-metre par-four, where trees and scrub line both sides of the driving zone. Ideally, a drive into the right half of the fairway will get some added distance from the downhill slope of a small hill. This line also leaves a good angle into a pear-shaped green, guarded by pot bunkers left and right. Find one of these bunkers and you will be odds-on to not make par.
Muriwai is a very good layout, and when Mother Nature lends a helping hand and produces a windy day you can sample the full links experience.
|
MEMORABLE HOLES 2nd, 5th, 8th, 12th, 15th and 17th WHERE TO GO Coast Rd, Muriwai BOOK A ROUND (09) 411 8454, www.muriwaigolfclub.co.nz OTHER 120 GREAT COURSES NEARBY Titirangi (40 km), Royal Auckland (54.6 km), The Grange (56.3 km) WHERE TO STAY The closest accommodation is at Lincoln Green Hotel & Conference Centre, near the north-western motorway and a 30-minute drive from the course. BEFORE/AFTER YOUR ROUND Muriwai Beach is one of NZ’s best. It is home to a huge gannet colony as well as Auckland Adventures, whose range of activities include mountain biking, winery and orchard tours, and bushwalking. |