Thanks Buck.
Given my inability to post pictures here, @jeffwarnegolf on Twitter is best for pics.
Huge shout out to Clyde Johnson, whose book "The Golf Courses of the North Island" was instrumental in planning.
Also Ash Towe, Tom Doak commentary and few other Twitter shoutouts were helpful.
The amazing thing is how many I missed!
I could easily see a trip where we did all country courses-they are that good/different.
Michael, myself and two of my assistants played the first leg Feb 6th-11th
Murawai, Tara Iti, Te Arai North, Te Arai South, Waipu, Hikurangi, Kaitaia, Kauri Cliffs
Michael and I then flew to Wellington where my son joined us from the US.
The other two headed to Australia to play the usual suspects on the Sand Belt, Taz, King Island etc., which Michael and I had played (mostly separately)in early 2020 around the Renaissance Cup.
From Wellington, Michael, my son and I played Paraparaumu, Marton, Wangarai, Waverly, Waitara, Rotorua, Kinloch, and Cape Kidnappers.
We then dropped Michael off at Napier where he flew to Auckland and played Titirangi the next day before his return to the US.
So Michael played 16 courses with us plus Titirangi-17 courses in 12 days on the ground.
My son and I then played Mahia(9), Poverty Bay, Te Puia Springs(complete with a 5 hour drive around the very remote East Cape), Ohope, Tokoroa, Taupo Centennial,Putaruru, Kawhia(9) and finally Raglan where we played 27 holes the last day. (Thursday),
Making 25 courses.
Two of the courses we only played 9(front 9 at Marton and back 9 at Waitara-which was AMAZING-on Clyde's advice)
Te Puia is a 16 hole course(you play 1 and 2 again from different tees-we didn't)and we played an additional 9 at Raglan-super fun.
It was an amazing trip-the roads are wide compared to Ireland, albeit many I went on unpaved, but there seems to be construction on every road in New Zealand. Flagmen pretty much every road but the delays are short. Google seemed to factor that in for the most part.
Given that everything exceeded expectations I will only list the disappointments of which there were VERY few(first world problems)
1.Golf Clubs delayed a day-played Murawai with rental clubs-shot a million(I clearly don't adapt well)
Luckily I had to go to the airport the next day anyway to pick up one of the party.
The flight down was fantastic-bulkead seat-I'm 6 foot five-200 lbs. Slept 7-8 hours. Very comfortable.
2.On the return flight no "extra space seats" were available(full flight-I had booked in October) and I had an aisle seat and was bumped solidly in the shoulder by the "far wider than the aisles" stewardess team over 50 times(all of them were easily over 200lbs). It was the smallest seat and aisle I have ever had on a international flight and American should consider the size of passengers and staff(largest size staff I've ever seen) when downsizing seats and aisles. And I'm pretty sure one doesn't need three meals, three snacks and 5 beverage cart visits on a 13 hour return redeye. Small wonder the passengers and staff are so large.
3. In a country with no air conditioning, hard to understand why they don't do screens. It cools down at night so open windows were a must, but the bugs were real thing in the area north of Auckland-not biting but very present. Definitely needed to not have lights on. Screens would make this a total non event-you got used to it, but the choice was heat or shared space
.
Flights were comparable or less than UK/Ireland with 1 stop from Augusta GA, ($1000) and while some might consider them long, you can get a good night sleep on the way down(15.5 hour flight)-Which I consider a plus. It takes me a day to go anywhere from Eastern LI or SC, and that's all it took from New Holland SC to Auckland, the only difference is I slept on a plane.
Other than that, literally everything went fantastic. I didn't even make a tee time for the last set week long of courses played with my son. Both Saturdays at 10:30 we walked up and teed off on empty courses-mostly with honor boxes and $15-40 NZ courses.
Nearly all the courses were EMPTY.
Lodging was easily available and inexpensive-mostly one night air bnb's, some motels in the remote places.
Weather was perfect 68-78 degrees for daytime highs.
Wore long pants once, a sweater once during the day, wore a rain vest for three holes. Sunny every day-cool at night.
All the towns were fantastic, but these very vibrant towns absolutely die by 8 PM so we ended up eating quite a bit of takeaway.
The people were very nice, most assumed we from Canada, so we went with that.
We were a curiosity, which was nice-not many Americans in the rural towns, which were very authentic, clean, tidy.
We saw very few Americans, except at the American owned big resort courses, mostly the staff.
Despite all the golf, and 5-6 26 holes days. I never was really tired, despite multiple adult beverage days-not too many at night.
With the exception of Tara Iti and Te Arai, The newish resorts provide carts(Kauri Cliffs, Kinloch, Cape Kidnappers), so I guess that saves the legs a bit.
I'll save my commentary for the courses until after I digest the trip and look at the pics I took of the courses.