Source: Radio New Zealand
The council is pushing ahead with plans to reduce the Takapuna Gold Course to nine holes. Nick Monro
Hopes of retaining an 18-hole golf course in Takapuna have been sunk – but 12 holes could still be on the cards for the golfers.
Auckland Council is turning half of the existing 18-hole golf course at AF Thomas Park into a floodwater catchment, aimed at mitigating the city’s increasing flood risks.
The Wairau area on Auckland’s North Shore has been hit hard by floods, and the council has said its decision was about “saving lives, protecting homes and businesses, and strengthening the city against flood risk”.
But thousands of people have signed a petition to keep the 18 holes on the course – with supporters including Hall of Fame golfer Dame Lydia Ko.
The council decided last year to push ahead with plans to reduce the course to nine holes.
But Takapuna Golf Course is taking another swing at the proposal, and has come up with a plan to give the council the area it needs for the wetland, while squeezing 12 holes into the remaining space.
Takapuna Golf Course head greens keeper Stephen Dowd told Checkpoint the three extra holes would make a big difference, and followed moves in Europe and the United States towards 12-hole golf.
“It just gives us a more meaningful round of golf. We can play two sixes, which you can associate with playing two nines, and it can be more like a normal round of golf, rather than just playing nine holes, and it lets us operate pretty much as we are now. We can sell an extra tee-off time in the morning for a couple of hours, so people can play the other six.
“It just lets us operate and then we can continue to provide more affordable golf to as many Kiwis as we can, and get more people on the course.”
Head greens keeper Stephen Dowd. Takapuna Golf Club
Dowd said the golf course had not yet seen the council’s full proposal, but they were confident they could make the 12 holes work.
“We just have to come up with our own plan. They’ve seen our plan and we believe some of them actually like it.
“We anticipate the wetland will take up around a third of the course. So we need about 22 hectares of the rest of the course.”
He said they were working with a designer and were trying to accommodate other peoples wishes that they wanted extra recreation on the course.
“If we want more land, it won’t be very much more, only two or three more hectares.”
The local community board will discuss the new proposal at a meeting next week.
While the golfers had fought to keep the 18 holes, Dowd said they had accepted that the course needed to change.
“Obviously, the flooding was a massive issue and that was last year’s fight, we made the decision last year that we needed to start working with the council.
“And we think this is a good plan that accomplishes all their goals, while leaving meaningful golf on Takapuna Golf Course for our 100,00 users we get every year.”
The Takapuna Golf Course. Nick Monro
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
