“It’s more than just a game for us”

What makes Takapuna Golf Course unique compared to other recreational options?

Takapuna Golf Course is one of the most accessible and affordable public golf facilities in Auckland. It is beginner-friendly, open to casual play, and supports a diverse community - young learners, retirees, working professionals, and women’s groups.

Its central location and welcoming format make it an outstanding recreational asset and one of only two PUBLIC courses in the region. Unlike more exclusive membership clubs, there are no barriers to public entry. This accessibility contributes to both community health outcomes and community connectedness.

As a sport, the game of golf has a wide range of benefits

Not just health benefits for the individual from participation in a sports activity and a four-hour walk and companionship, but also to the community, as a space for charity events and fundraisers, and to the urban environment, as a managed open space, full of trees and habitats for nature.

For our youth, it’s a place to learn the game affordably (such as a young Lydia Ko and a young Ryan Fox), and for our growing numbers of retirees, it’s often their lifeline to companionship and affordable recreation.

The 100,000 rounds of golf played at Takapuna per year is all the evidence needed to show just how popular this public amenity is.

With the real likelihood of four-day (and later three-day) working weeks emerging as well as the impacts of AI and housing intensification, the need for this golf course (and all others) will only become greater.

Reducing the course to nine holes will have a permanent detrimental impact on tens of thousands within our communities. That number of users, will not be able to simply “play two rounds” - the flow of the golf course will grind to a halt, like a bottleneck on the motorway.

There literally is nowhere else for most of these people to go. Golf course memberships all over the region are expensive and many of the clubs are full.

It should also be stated, that the user base of the Takapuna Golf Course is not just local. It is in reality, ‘regional’. People come from all over Auckland to play an affordable round of 18 holes at the Takapuna Golf Course.

Keeping the course as 18 holes, is the best way to accommodate such a large and rapidly growing user base.