Pungarehu Golf Club

Few backdrops in New Zealand golf match what Pungarehu Golf Club offers. The course sits in the shadow of Mount Taranaki, the near-perfect volcanic cone that dominates the Taranaki coastline, and on a clear day the mountain's presence over the fairways is genuinely arresting. The surrounding land is classic Taranaki dairy country — lush, rolling, intensely green — shaped by the rich volcanic soils that radiate outward from the mountain's flanks.

Pungarehu is a rural club in the truest sense: a community course serving a small coastal farming district between Ōpunake and Cape Egmont. Expect a relaxed, unpretentious atmosphere, well-kept grass that benefits from Taranaki's reliable rainfall, and the kind of welcome that smaller New Zealand clubs do better than almost anywhere. The course plays through open pastoral terrain, where wind off the Tasman Sea is a constant factor and adds genuine difficulty to what might otherwise seem a straightforward layout.

For visitors exploring Taranaki's surf coast — Ōpunake is a popular stop for the waves at its beach — Pungarehu offers an honest round of golf with one of the country's great natural landmarks keeping watch throughout.