Tieke

Opening its doors to visitor play at the end of 2021, the 18-hole layout on the Tieke Golf Estate is a total redesign of the former Lochiel Golf Club course by former PGA Tour winner Phil Tataurangi in collaboration with Brett Thomson of RBT Design.

The Lochiel club was founded in 1938 and its rural course on the banks of the Waikato River was largely maintained down the years by sheep and volunteers. It recently merged with The Narrows, another local club, becoming Riverside Golf Club in 2014.

After the national transport agency announced plans to route a highway through The Narrows course property, the club decided to sell this site, enabling the development of the Tieke Golf Estate on the Lochiel site.

Many hundreds of old trees, shrubs and bushes were removed from the riverside landscape, exposing the sandy soils which had lain beneath the turf for thousands of years. A new routing was then devised to make the very most of the site.

“Fescue turf and creeping bent grass greens are not common in this part of NZ,” Phil Tataurangi said during the build. “These surfaces complement the free draining soils and encourage the ground game; the natural river sand is the centrepiece of Tieke’s construction.”