Ten years ago, Manukau Golf Club in Takanini, a southern suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, had fallen into substantial debt and club executives were considering its future.
Several options were explored, but ultimately the most attractive to the membership was selling the land to one of New Zealand’s largest building companies and developing a new course less than seven kilometres away.
Brett Thomson of RBT Design was selected to lead the design in collaboration with course consultant and PGA Tour professional Phil Tataurangi. In September 2016, the newly named Windross Farm opened for play.
Following the club’s tenth anniversary celebration, GCA spoke with Tataurangi about the course and how it has matured.
What was the initial site for Windross Farm like?
Developing a vision for the course was a critical first step. Windross Farm was never gifted with great golf land. The final of several sites explored was a 56-hectare property located near Ardmore Airport, just a 30-minute drive from downtown Auckland. However, it’s best described as ‘featureless’ and far from the ideals of lightly contoured terrain.
As a flat cropping paddock growing corn, maize and potatoes, it was largely devoid of any inspiration. It was obvious that a golf course on this site had to be created, not discovered.
That set a path towards a highly engineered build that required the importation of rotten rock or quarry spoil, trucked in from three nearby quarries. In the end, over 300,000 cubic metres of material was bulk shaped, six main lakes were dug out to source additional fill, and several wetlands were crafted to help manage the stormwater across the site.
Despite having more than adequate space for an 18-hole routing and no natural features of design value, it meant nearly everything was possible. I recall the challenge of agreeing on a layout when a variety of configurations were appealing.
There wasn’t any part of the site that golf holes needed to play to. There was nothing to work with, therefore the earthworks, modelling and shaping were going to be crucial to hide the fact that the fields were ideally suited for food production, not birdies and bogeys.
I credit Brett and the numerous consultants with envisioning the placement of the stoney clay to form the subgrade – 100 per cent of the contouring had to be imagined.
The eighteenth hole at Windross Farm (Photo: Compound Studios/ Michael Sclanders)
How would you describe the course’s character?
People have called Windross Farm a links course since it opened, mostly because it has almost no trees lining its corridors – a deliberate contrast to Manukau Golf Club’s old, heavily tree-lined layout.
The actual inspiration for Windross Farm was the farmland and hill country that’s visible beyond the course boundary, not the coastal duneland. Although on the southern outskirts of New Zealand’s largest city, the farmland concept was considered a point of difference at the time. Auckland boasts more than 35 courses, with most of them set in urban environments and lined with a mix of aged exotics planted in the middle of last century.
Although located at one of the narrowest points of the North Island, the sandy soils were not present. At less than 10 kilometres either east or west, you would have been placed in the Manukau or Waitemata harbours, with no hint of links land nearby. Therefore, riffing off the natural rolls, folds and abruptness of the farming land was the guiding influence.
Whenever we were welcoming a new team member, whether they be a shaper, construction labourer or greenkeeper on board for the grow-in, the hill across the way was always the informant.
Although a road separated the properties, the goal was to attempt to make it appear as though the fields were connected. In the 10 years since, this approach has proved to work… arguably too well – many golfers now assume the land was always like this.
What a tremendous compliment it is for all involved that golfers actually think this land is enjoyable for golf. If they only knew what it looked like over a decade ago!
This also carried real tension during construction. Enough fill had to come in to create shape and interest, but the team had to do so without blowing the budget. They also had to be cognisant of keeping low points above the water table and having enough fall so the site would actually drain.
A decade later, that balance, done under financial and engineering pressure, is the thing I’m proudest of. Brett’s landscape architecture experience and management of the construction methodology taught me a lot about the core functionality of golf course design. Windross was baptism by fire in this regard.
How did you and Brett Thomson produce a course that is both playable and offers a challenge?
Back in 2016, golf course development in New Zealand was still largely dominated by courses aspiring to be championship venues. Some of these courses have indeed gone on to host the NZ Open, NZPGA and tournaments sanctioned on professional tours.
The Nationwide, now Korn Ferry Tour, along with the European tours, all had stints playing on new layouts that had ‘tournament length tees’ in mind.
There was pressure early on for Windross Farm to be the longest course in Auckland. However, despite my former career, myself and Brett deliberately steered in a different direction.
Our preference was to build primarily for Manukau Golf Club’s members and everyday visiting golfers rather than chase tournament prestige. Sure, being located near to the country’s largest airport meant some international golf tourism play was a possibility, but it wasn’t envisioned with the touring professional in mind.
But this thinking would all be flipped when a rare opportunity became a reality.
When the NZ Women’s Open was awarded a date on the LPGA Tour, Windross Farm was an appealing venue for the tournament organisers. The dimensions of the routing meant it was consistent with courses on the women’s tour.
So, at just over 12 months old, New Zealand’s youngest course at the time hosted the 2017 New Zealand Women’s Open – won by Brooke Henderson on a windy Monday finish. NZ’s greatest female golfer Lydia Ko challenged late into the final round but came up just short in front of her home fans.
A decade on, the decision to not be distracted by scorecard length is another accomplishment of the design. By remaining a course where handicap players can be challenged but still have every opportunity to shoot lower than their handicap is applauded.
For those lower markers hoping to tear it apart, they often get tripped up being overly aggressive instead of playing the strategy of each hole. Windross Farm is one of the windier golf venues in the country. The holes aren’t long, but the constant wind means low-single-figure players still have to work hard to break par. Exposure was somewhat unavoidable given the site, and it’s now understood as a defining, permanent character trait of the course rather than something that will soften with time.
How has the course matured over the past 10 years?
Perhaps the clearest lesson from the past decade is that a golf course is never ‘finished’ the day it opens.
Tens of thousands of native plants were installed during construction to add a complementary feel to the wetlands and riparian margins. A decade of growth in the mild Auckland climate has meant some releasing of areas will be required. Wetland planting in several areas has grown in far more thickly than expected, adding maintenance burden and closing off open water views the design originally intended.
Rounds have also steadily grown to 45,000+ per year, well beyond original assumptions, which has placed some pressure on some teeing grounds and transition zones.
Some of the tees were built smaller than drawn or never built at all because of budgetary constraints. These now need to be restored to their intended size to better manage the wear.
Some drainage isn’t performing as intended in a few areas also, and natural settlement in the site’s peat has subtly altered contours, particularly in some fairways.
Although far from broken after 10 years of growing in, it’s a gentle reminder that a golf course is a living landscape, not a finished structure.
What’s next for Windross Farm?
New golf courses are best tended to with periodic architectural inspection. I’m now back working with superintendent Tomas Shaw, in his second stint at the course, on a roadmap for the next 10 years. Largely, this will be about continuing to nurture the same original vision that Brett and I set out.
Over the last few years, some good work has been started to get the course back to playing more consistently with our initial intentions. Firmer, with the ball bouncing and rolling over the fescue playing surfaces.
We hope to also encourage the native wetland vegetation in areas and open areas up that may have grown in a little too well.
What holes continue to stand out 10 years after the course’s opening?
The short par-five fifth is designed to tease the member into opening the shoulders and ‘going for it’ with their second. The long humpback green has an adjacent water hazard dropping off the right edge of the putting surface. Although the fairway is wide and with plentiful pitch, some ongoing fairway drainage issues will be addressed to better present an exciting scoring hole on the front side.
The tenth hole, with a burn weaving down and across the fairway (Photo: Compound Studios/ Michael Sclanders)
Then there’s the tenth, which borrows a ‘weaving burn’ flanked by a sleeper wall concept from Dundonald Links near Royal Troon. This hole can play as a tempting and driveable par four, as it did during the third round of the LPGA event, or as a strategic two-shotter on the northerly breeze.
And thirdly is the par-three thirteenth, where the tee complex offers real variety in length and angle – 110 to roughly 170 metres depending on tee – to a wide, shallow, multi-tiered green.
The par-three seventeenth (Photo: Compound Studios/ Michael Sclanders)
All the holes were a fun challenge to build, but these three especially come to mind as favourites for different reasons. It’s great to see they are still presenting players with a variety of options to score and also adding interest to what was a barren site prior to construction.
Over the ensuing years, the club has committed to further progressing what began as a cornfield and became an engineering marvel. The fact that many visiting golfers are unaware of the club’s journey is high praise for all involved.