Hawera Golf Club

South Taranaki's coastal plains stretch flat and wide beneath the ever-present cone of Mount Taranaki, and it's in this distinctive landscape that Hawera Golf Club has operated for well over a century. The course sits in a region where the volcanic soils and reliable rainfall keep the turf dense and green year-round, giving it that lush, soft underfoot quality that characterises Taranaki golf. The mountain — when it shows itself through the cloud — provides one of the more dramatic backdrops you'll find on any regional New Zealand course.

Hāwera itself is a working dairy town, the commercial hub of South Taranaki, and the golf club carries that same unpretentious, community-rooted character. This is member-first golf, the kind where a Saturday morning four-ball has been a local ritual for generations and the clubhouse conversation tends toward the practical rather than the ceremonial.

The layout makes intelligent use of relatively level ground, with tree-lined fairways and tight approach angles demanding accuracy over raw power. It rewards course knowledge and a tidy short game — the sort of track that improves considerably the more times you walk it.