New Zealand has over four hundred golf courses spread across its two islands, but the golfer who flies twenty-four hours from the northern hemisphere doesn't come to play them all. They come to play seven, maybe eight, and go home saying they have seen something that doesn't exist in Scotland, or Ireland, or California. The difference isn't the architecture — there are better-designed courses elsewhere — it's the scale. In New Zealand the course occupies a fraction of the landscape, and the landscape takes the rest. A tee box suspended three hundred metres above the Pacific, a green perched among giant ferns, a fairway ending at an uninhabited beach. It is that disproportion between human craft and raw nature that turns a round here into something else entirely.
The following courses form the backbone of any serious golf itinerary in the country. They are designed by some of the finest living architects — Tom Doak, Bill Coore, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Doak again — and several feature among Golf Digest's and Golf Magazine's world top hundred. But none of them translates well onto a list: they have to be imagined.
Royal Auckland & Grange
It is the first course anyone plays when arriving through Auckland, and it works as a gentle landing. Redesigned by Nicklaus Design and reopened after a multi-year renovation, it offers twenty-seven holes with sand-capped fairways and SubAir-technology greens, meaning it plays in immaculate condition almost year-round. It doesn't have the scenic drama of what follows, but it is technically demanding and built to a standard that sets the tone for New Zealand's ambition in golf. The player who starts it thinking of it as a city warm-up course finishes understanding they are already somewhere else.
Te Arai Links — South and North
Two hours north of Auckland, on a stretch of coastal dunes that could have been lifted from the east coast of Scotland, sits Te Arai Links. Two sister courses, two distinct souls. The South Course, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and opened in October 2022, takes the bluff: sixteen of its eighteen holes face the Pacific and eight border the ocean directly. It is the most photographed course in the country and, as it stands, one of the cleanest and most understated links courses playable in the southern hemisphere.
The North Course, designed by Tom Doak and opened in October 2023, plays the opposite way: it starts and finishes on the ocean but spends most of the round inland, among pines, dry dunes and greens of almost absurd geometry. Doak spent two months on site running the bulldozer himself, personally shaping the greens at four and seven — the two most talked-about on the course. It is a course that frustrates on the first loop and fascinates on the third. Both are walking-only. No carts. No spiked shoes. That's the philosophy.
Kauri Cliffs
In the Bay of Islands, on a former sheep station perched over the Pacific, David Harman's par 72 — built across 4,500 acres of cliffs, forest and farmland — currently ranks twenty-sixth on Golf Digest's 2024-2025 World 100 list. Fifteen of its eighteen holes face the sea, and six run directly along the edge of cliffs that fall hundreds of metres to the Pacific. The round begins inland, through subtropical valleys and stands of tree ferns, and gradually opens out to the coast. The seventh, fourteenth and fifteenth are, quite possibly, three of the most complete vistas in world golf. Harman died in 2004, a few years after finishing the project. This was, unquestionably, his finest work.
Cape Kidnappers
Four hundred miles south of Kauri Cliffs, in Hawke's Bay, Tom Doak did something that still looks physically improbable: he routed a golf course across a series of narrow land ridges that jut out into the sea like fingers. Cape Kidnappers is built on a 6,000-acre working farm, with fairways suspended a hundred and forty metres above the Pacific. The fifteenth, a par five nicknamed Pirate's Plank, is the hole everyone talks about: a narrow fairway advancing onto a promontory with emptiness on both sides. Between Kauri Cliffs and Cape Kidnappers, shared ownership and a shared ambition turned New Zealand into a compulsory stop for the golfer who has already played everywhere else.
Kinloch
On the shores of Lake Taupō, in the central North Island, Jack Nicklaus designed his only signature course in New Zealand. Kinloch is pure craft: rolling fairways, deep bunkers, fast greens that reward the short game. Nicklaus conceived it as an inland links, with views over the country's largest lake — a dormant volcano full of crystal water — and the central mountain range. It lacks the coastal drama of the northern courses, but it compensates with a layout that is significantly more demanding from the tee. The player who arrives expecting an easier day inland learns the lesson sooner than later.
Jack's Point
Six hundred kilometres further south, on the South Island, Jack's Point sits at the edge of Lake Wakatipu with the Remarkables behind it — a range that rises more than two thousand metres vertically from the water. It is, arguably, the most instantly photogenic course in the country. John Darby routed it along the natural terrain: native tussock, rock outcrops, low bush, and the lake appearing and disappearing through the landscape. Five tee positions make it playable at any level. In Queenstown, a round here before lunch and an evening in town afterwards has become a rhythm that travellers happily repeat.
The Hills
Twenty minutes from Queenstown, The Hills is a private course — owned by Sir Michael Hill, the founder of the New Zealand jewellery house of the same name — and hosted the New Zealand Open for several years. Darby Partners designed it across five hundred acres of glacial valley, with fairways threading through tussock, wetlands and patches of native bush. What distinguishes The Hills isn't only the routing: it is the sculpture park scattered along the course. Monumental pieces by Australian, New Zealand and, more recently, Chinese artists, placed beside tees, along fairways, behind greens. Playing it feels like something between a round of golf and an open-air museum. Access is by introduction only, but for the player interested in the intersection of sport, architecture and art, it is the only course of its kind in the country.
And one hole that isn't on any map
High in the Southern Alps, 4,500 feet above Queenstown, there is a par three with four tee boxes and a single green. It doesn't appear on any ranking because it isn't a course: it is one hole. The only access is by helicopter with Over The Top, the local operator that maintains the green as a platform in the middle of nowhere. You land, play the hole, celebrate or mourn what happens, and fly back to Queenstown in time for dinner. An eccentricity, yes. But it sums up fairly accurately what New Zealand has understood about luxury golf: that the hole, in the end, is an excuse for the landscape.
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The photographs accompanying this article are the work of Jacob Sjöman, an international golf photographer with projects across five continents. His work has appeared in publications such as Golf Magazine and his lens has captured some of the most iconic courses in the world, from New Zealand to Scandinavia. Sjöman doesn't photograph courses — he photographs the light, the silence and the scale of the landscapes where golf finds its finest version.
Playing these seven courses on a single trip isn't a matter of logistics — it is a matter of judgement. New Zealand can't be crossed in a straight line, and transfers between courses are typically made by light aircraft or helicopter, not by road. Designing the order, the pacing and the lodges in between is, ultimately, what separates a good golf trip from one that stays with you for life.
