Kaitake Golf Club

Few backdrops in New Zealand golf match what greets you at Kaitake — the near-perfect cone of Mount Taranaki rising behind the course, one of the most visually striking settings in the country. The club takes its name from the Kaitake Range, the older, eroded volcanic hills that form the western edge of Egmont National Park, and the course sits where farmland meets that dramatic volcanic landscape on the coast road south of New Plymouth.

Taranaki is a region shaped by its volcano — the rich, dark soils, the lush green turf, the frequent rain rolling in off the Tasman Sea — and all of that feeds into Kaitake's playing conditions. The course typically presents firm, well-grassed fairways and a layout that rewards local knowledge, as the wind off the coast can shift the challenge considerably from one round to the next.

As a community club in a proudly rugby-mad, outdoors-oriented region, Kaitake has the welcoming atmosphere of a genuine members' course — the kind of place where visitors are made to feel at home and the mountain, when it emerges from the clouds, makes every round memorable.