New Te Arai Links golf course at Mangawhai will open to the public

Ten years ago Mangawhai was a turn off that Aucklanders barely glanced at as they bypassed the beach spot on their way to holiday homes in the Bay of Islands.

But since an American billionaire
decided to establish a world-class exclusive golf resort at Te Arai, just south of Mangawhai, it’s become the talk of the high-end golfing world.

Years ago fund manager Ric Kayne thought he’d build a golf course for family and friends on a deserted stretch of sand dunes, tussock and old pine forestry.

Now his vision, the Tom Doak-designed Tara Iti Golf Club, is a place where an American president and a New Zealand prime minister have played golf together, where a collection of wealthy American, Kiwi and Australian business owners, philanthropists, Richlisters and billionaires can tee off together, bond over 18 holes and, later, network over cocktails and dinner.

And there’s more to come. A few kilometers away, stretching across 5.5km of fine sand-and-surf beach is Te Arai Links – a Coore Crenshaw-designed South Course, due to open in October, and a Tom Doak-designed North Course that will open in late 2023 .

Tara Iti, which opened in 2015, will remain a strictly members-only club but the new Te Arai Links will eventually be open to the public.

For now, only Te Arai Links members will be able to play on the South Course, but once both courses are open, members of the public will be able to play one course each day, alternating with club members.

The casual rate, to be released next month, will include a New Zealand residents’ green fee and an international one. The Te Arai Links joining fee will be $48,800 and $10,000 a year for a family membership.

The venture, like any development during the Covid-19 era, has not been without its challenges. Lockdowns caused delays, and American golf architect Bill Coore had to endure four two-week stays in an MIQ hotel during visits to New Zealand.

To date 48 accommodation suites have been built with another 19 two-bedroom cottages and six four-bedroom villas under construction. The Te Arai Links clubhouse and Ric’s, a casual pizza restaurant, are finished, with another clubhouse and restaurant still to come. With that new development comes an increased need for operational staff.

Says Jim Rohrstaff, Kayne’s partner in the project and man-on-the-ground in Auckland: “We are hiring aggressively right now and we need more.”

Further north at Tara Iti, run as an equity club, membership is capped at 300. The club is named after the rare New Zealand fairy tern, or tara iti, which lives in the dunes. A discreet outline of the dainty bird is the only emblem visible on golfing leisurewear worn by club members.

Tara Iti management has partnered with the Shorebirds Trust to provide a safe breeding ground for the birds, and is paying for ongoing pest eradication. More than two million native trees and plants have been planted across 1400 hectares, Rohrstaff says.

Shareholders linked to Tara Iti Golf Club Ltd include New Zealand billionaires Graeme and Robyn Hart, their son Harry and their son-in-law Duncan Hawkesby.

Other shareholders include rich lister Chris Liddell, Kea Property Group owners Deirdre and David McAlpine, and American hedge fund manager William Powers who, jointly with another hedge-fund manager, bought a late billionaire’s eight-bedroom Palm Beach mansion for $62 million in 2018.

About 125 properties have been sold at both Tara Iti and Te Arai Links, mostly to Kiwis, for between $2m and $5.5m. Around 25 per cent are owned by Americans who bought before the government banned foreigners from buying property in New Zealand in 2018.

Rohrstaff says October 22, 2018, is a date he’ll never forget. It’s a restriction he finds both frustrating and illogical.

“In reality foreigners (buying residential property) represent about 3 per cent of the marketplace.”

He predicted that pulling foreign buyers out of the market would not help prices drop for first-home buyers, and they didn’t.

“House prices in the last four years have soared higher than they did the four years prior. So it wasn’t the pesky foreigners.”

Rohrstaff, as a New Zealand resident and the father of two Kiwi boys, is all for protecting first-home buyers but he doesn’t think an “emotive” ban on foreigners is the answer. He’d like to see some logic applied such as a restriction that means foreign buyers have to spend over a certain threshold.

“Because then you take away the argument of the first-time home buyer,” he says. “If a foreigner comes in and buys a $5 million property does that negatively impact anyone else?”