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The best courses in New Zealand

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Ricky Robinson/Courtesy of the club

By Derek Duncan and Stephen Hennessey
June 05, 2026
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No country on earth has come farther or faster to the global golf stage than New Zealand. Prior to 2000, the island nation was known for high quality but quiet golf, with most of the best-known courses like Royal Auckland, Royal Wellington, Titirangi and Arrowtown dating to 1950 or earlier. These courses were and are widely admired, including Paraparaumu Beach that ranks No. 98 on our latest World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses, but few of them took advantage of the country’s incredible bounty of geological assets.

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That began to change in 2000 with the opening of Kauri Cliffs on the north end of the North Island where the golf holes scampered along bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In the quarter century since, developers have explored other dramatic coastal and lakeside sites, leading to courses like the links design at Tara Iti, the country’s top-rated course and No. 7 overall on the World list, and the clifftop Cape Kidnappers. In fact, the top six courses in New Zealand, and eight of the top 11, have been built since the turn of the century. The golf eyes of the world have fixed on New Zealand, and you can be assured there will be more for them to see in the coming years.

We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and expanded reviews. Plus, you can now leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … to make your case why your favorite should be ranked higher.

Editor's Note: Our Best Courses in New Zealand ranking is part of Golf Digest's rollout of the Best Courses in Every Country. Check back over the next few weeks for more of our rankings of the best golf around the world.

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20. Clearwater G.C.
Northwood, Christchurch, New Zealand
Built on what was once farmland in Christchurch, Clearwater Golf Club was developed into a residential community and a golf course by John Darby, who designed a handful of courses in his native country (including No. 6 Jack’s Point). The course incorporates water on a number of holes, a bit reminiscent of Florida golf. Clearwater hosted the ISPS Handa NZ Women's Open for four years, won three times by New Zealand’s own Lydia Ko, who shot a course-record 61 in her 2015 triumph.
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19. Tieke Golf Estate
Rukuhia , Waipa, New Zealand
About two hours from Auckland sits Tieke Golf Estate, another newcomer to the New Zealand golf scene, designed by former PGA Tour player and current announcer Phil Tataurangi, a native New Zealander, along with Brett Thomson. The duo took an existing course, Lochiel Golf Club, and turned it into one of the country’s best, clearing out thousands of trees and exposing the native sandy soil. The layout traverses links-like mounds along the Waikato River and encourages golfers to embrace the ground game with its firm fescue turf.
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18. Christchurch Golf Club
Shirley, Christchurch, New Zealand
Christchurch Golf Club at Shirley Links dates back to 1873, making it the second-oldest club in New Zealand and the seventh-oldest of any club outside the United Kingdom. For the cost of six pounds, the course was laid out on its current location in 1900 and expanded to 18 holes in 1910.
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17. Hastings Golf Club
Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
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16. Arrowtown Golf Club
Arrowtown, Otago, New Zealand
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15. Muriwai G.C.
Muriwai, Auckland, New Zealand
Routed along the Tasmana Sea in the Muriwai Beach area about 40 minutes from Auckland, Muriwai Golf Links is routed between natural flora and vegetation, weaving in and out providing links-style and parkland holes. Built in 1956, Muriwai remains mostly untouched and is an unforgettable setting reminding one at times of some of the best venues in the U.K.
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14. Royal Wellington Golf Club
Upper Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand
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13. Titirangi Golf Club
New Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand
Titirangi Golf Club is New Zealand’s only Alister MacKenzie design, as the Good Doctor stopped on his tour of Australia and spent two weeks in Auckland, rerouting an existing layout by its members to take advantage of the land’s naturally rolling terrain. The club used MacKenzie’s old sketches to restore his work in the 1990s, ensuring his touches remain on this historic layout, where Frank Nobilo grew up playing.
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12. Millbrook Resort: Coronet
Arrowtown, Otago, New Zealand
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11. The Hills Golf Club
Courtesy of the club
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11. The Hills Golf Club
Arrowtown, Otago, New Zealand
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10. Royal Auckland and Grange Golf Club
Papatoetoe , Auckland, New Zealand
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9. Wairakei Golf and Sanctuary
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9. Wairakei Golf and Sanctuary
Wairakei, Taupo, New Zealand
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8. Kinloch Golf Club
Kinloch, Taupo, New Zealand
Previously a member of Golf Digest's World's 100 Greatest Courses outside the U.S. and an Editor's Choice award winner for Best Resort in New Zealand and Australia, Kinloch is a Jack Nicklaus signature design that opened in 2007. It's currently fourth on the list of Golf Digest Australia's Best Courses in New Zealand.
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7. Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club
Paraparaumu Beach, Kapiti Coast, New Zealand
Few authentic sand-based links in New Zealand had an international following before the development of Tara Iti and the courses at Te Arai. Paraparaumu Beach is the exception. James Watt built the course on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington in two sections, one nine in 1930, the other in 1937. New owners took charge in 1949 and to remodel it they hired Alex Russell, the Australian champion golfer who turned to course design after working with Alister Mackenzie. Russell spent six weeks on the property, reshaping dunes and creating splashy bunkers. Two years later, he returned and altered bunker faces from sand to turf because heavy winds were constantly eroding the steep sand faces. The club has preserved a number of mature trees throughout the links to act as buffers against wind.
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6. Jack's Point G.C.
Jack's Point, Queenstown, New Zealand
John Darby, a New Zealand land planner and golf architect, routed Jack's Point through one of the South Island’s most dramatic backdrops highlighted by continuous panoramic views of the mile-high Remarkables Mountains. The routing is like an amusement park ride, building anticipation through the opening holes with a slow climb toward the elevated green at the par-5 fifth and a stunning reveal of Lake Wakatipu. From there it’s a thrilling rush that doesn’t stop, moving steeply downhill at the lakeside sixth and drop-shot par-3 seventh, then back into the heart of the property with holes that play across the central plateau along and over ravines before a final, sharp descent back down into the interior valley. What the design sacrifices in walkability it more than makes up for in explosive aesthetics, heart-in-throat tee shots and rugged bunkering that guards greens and serve as visual guideposts. Golfers expect big, spectacular experiences when visiting New Zealand, and Jack’s Point delivers one of its best.
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5. Kauri Cliffs
Matauri Bay, Northland, New Zealand
Like Cape Kidnappers 400 miles to the southeast, Kauri Cliffs occupies an old sheep ranch atop an ocean-front plateau laced with canyons. Unlike Kidnappers, the 2000 layout by design-and-build architect Dave Harman of Orlando has hills of native rough, stands of fern and more forced carries over gorges. The topography allowed Harman to string the seventh and eighth and 14th through 17th holes parallel to the edge of the Pacific, although several hundred feet above it. Sadly, Harman died in 2004 of tongue cancer. Kauri Cliffs was his finest achievement.
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4. Te Arai Links: North Course
Tomarata, Auckland, New Zealand
Tom Doak’s North Course at this new resort development on the northeast course of New Zealand is the highest-ranked debut in 2024. Unlike the South Course, which opened a year earlier, only a few holes play near the Pacific Ocean. The North doesn’t need them. Doak’s routing begins and ends on the ocean, but the spirit of the design resides in the majority of holes that play inland through sand barrens and a forest of conifers. As expected from Doak, the greens are full of robust movements and there are few level stances anywhere that’s not a tee.
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3. Te Arai Links: South Course
Tomarata, Auckland, New Zealand
The courses at Te Arai are cousins of Tara Iti, a private course that jumped to No. 2 in the ranking shortly after it opened in 2015 (it’s currently seventh). The two public resort courses are situated roughly five miles to the south along the same long stretch of Pacific beach, where Bill Coore’s figure-eight routing of the spellbinding South Course begins in a forest behind a wall of inland sand dunes before exploding onto the oceanfront headlands stringing parts or all of 10 tumbling, rambling holes along the sea.
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2. The Farm at Cape Kidnapper's
Te Awanga, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand
Not a links, more like a stratospheric Pebble Beach, high atop a windswept plateau some 500 feet above the sea. The 2004 design truly demonstrates the lay-of-the-land philosophy of American architect Tom Doak, who ran holes out and back along a series of ridges perpendicular with the coastline, most framed by deep canyons. The fairways are wide, but Doak rewards bold tee shots that flirt with ravines and sets strategies using some of the deepest bunkers he has ever built. Cape Kidnappers was also the International winner of a 2012 Environmental Leaders in Golf Award, co-sponsored by Golf Digest.
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1. Tara Iti Golf Club
Manghawai, Northland, New Zealand
Built by American designer Tom Doak from what had been a pine-covered Sahara along the northeastern coast of New Zealand's North Island, Tara Iti is far more links-like than the country's other coastal courses, most of which are on rock. Doak and design associate Brian Slawnik spent more than two years gently resculpting the sandy soil into hummocks, punchbowls and sand dunes that look like they were formed by wind and vegetated by nature. There's lots of sand but no bunkers. Golfers may ground the club anywhere. With holes inspired by Cypress Point, Royal Dornoch and Royal St. George's, and views everywhere of the Hauraki Gulf, this is New Zealand's answer to Pebble Beach's Carmel Bay. The greatest meeting of land and sea is clearly up for debate.
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