Titirangi Golf Club Incorporated

The resemblance between the course at Titirangi Golf Club and those in Melbourne's famed Sandbelt is not accidental, for Alister MacKenzie designed the former course in 1926 on a trip to New Zealand during the time he was revolutionizing golf architecture in Australia. MacKenzie transformed a tract of promising native heathland terrain into a vision of something out of Surrey or Berkshire, and the management of the club has had the good sense to retain the great man's vision. At least for the most part: some ill-considered renovation in recent years has significantly altered MacKenzie's signature bunkers into something reminiscent of Robert Trent Jones Sr.'s late-period busy, ragged-edged and quite artificial creations. The greens too seem a little more lumpy than they would have been in the early days of the course, though this is open to question. In any case, enough remains to make Titirangi a classic golfing experience.