Cape Kidnappers

The longest drive at Cape Kidnappers is between the public road and the clubhouse. It takes a full 20 minutes to cover the ground from the gate to the golf clubhouse – a journey that takes your through a sheep and cattle station and bush land. This degree of seclusion means that the golf course is on pristine land, wedged between the station and the towering cliffs of the Cape. The back nine extends along several fingers of land, separated by deep gullies which dip down to the sea. Frome these points you can look beyond the cliffs and along the shoreline across the wine country of Hawkes Bay and, at the other end, the art deco township of Napier.

The owner and architect, in recognition of the nature of the land have deliberately retained a rugged feel to the course and its surrounds. There is no superfluity. The tees are marked with simple wooden pegs. The clubhouse, though luxurious within, is compact and roofed in the local style with corrugated metal.

The scale of the landscape and generosity of land utilised for the layout makes the fairways seem small by comparison. This is a visual distortion that must be dispelled in the golfer’s mind, as you need plenty of confidence to hit out at the targets here at Cape Kidnappers.

If you can keep your eyes off the cliff top views, the main golfing points of the course are the bunkers and the greens. Architect, Tom Doak, is at the vanguard of the mission to recover some of the penalty value of bunkers. His time spent studying the works of the great architects of the early part of the 20th century has given him a healthy disdain for trees and water as hazards and led him to concentrate his efforts on land shapes and greenside bunkering.

In an industry noted for its gigantic egos and questionable sense of taste, Tom Doak is a distinctively different and intelligent course architect. At Cape Kidnappers, he has created a course of great drama, interest, originality and beauty. Any avid collector of golfing experiences should reach into their pocket books and make the trip to the North Island to play this course. It is both beautiful and compelling.

The above passage is an extract from The Finest Golf Courses of Asia and Australasia by James Spence. Reproduced with kind permission.