Otautau Golf Course

Otautau sits in the broad pastoral valley of the Aparima River, deep in Southland — New Zealand's southernmost province and one of its most underrated golfing regions. The town is a quiet service centre for the surrounding sheep and beef farms, and the golf club here has the honest, unpretentious character you'd expect from a rural community course that exists first and foremost for its members. Southland's climate is bracing and changeable, and any round in this part of the country comes with the understanding that the wind can reshape the challenge in a matter of minutes.

Like many Southland clubs, Otautau offers golf in its most straightforward form — fairways cut from farmland, a tight-knit membership, and the kind of relaxed atmosphere that has largely disappeared from busier parts of the country. The surrounding landscape is genuinely beautiful in a wide-open, unhurried way, with the Takitimu Mountains providing a striking backdrop to the west.

For visitors passing through on a South Island road trip — perhaps traveling between Invercargill and Te Anau — Otautau is the sort of welcoming country club where a warm reception at the clubhouse is as much a part of the visit as the round itself.