Leading New Zealand links golf course has 'gone to the dogs'
A top professional golfer once rated Invercargill’s Oreti Sands alongside links courses used for British Open tournaments. Now just the ghosts of the site’s golfing past remain at the abandoned course. Logan Savory reports.
Mixed emotions surface on the rare occasion Michael Horn now visits the former Oreti Sands golf course.
For almost five decades the 60 hectares of land near Invercargill’s Oreti Beach could have been regarded as Horn’s second home. As it was for many of his golfing mates, for that matter.
Horn was a regular at the course from the day it opened in 1971 until 47 years later when Oreti Sands, as a golf course at least, closed.
In fact, Horn was the Southland Golf Club’s president in 2018 when it decided not to renew its lease with the Invercargill City Council and shut up shop.
It was a decision that effectively closed the world’s southernmost links course; a course many global golf publications had ranked in New Zealand’s top 20 courses.
It was supposed to be a course that would provide a tourism opportunity for Invercargill.
Instead, four years on, just the ghosts of its golfing past remain.
The greens are now unrecognisable, and the fairways are in a ragged state. Although the council does still give the fairway areas a trim to ensure they don’t return to their overgrown natural state. It’s a move that’s led to a popular new use for the reserve land.
More on that to come.
The dated clubhouse still stands proudly metres away from the vanished 18th green where golfers once holed their final putt of the day.
Slots for golfers to hand in their scorecards still remain at the clubhouse four years after the club’s closure. As do signs pointing to car parks designated for Southland Golf Club officials.
Other messages remain attached to the clubhouse. One advises the now non-existent golfers that there’s to be no play before 10.30am because of frost on the course.
‘‘It prompts a few memories doesn’t it,’’ Horns says about the signage.
Probably the most ironic message remaining reminds golfers that no dogs are allowed. It’s ironic because what was once the world’s southernmost links golf course is now doggy heaven.
When the Southland Golf Club chose not to renew its lease in 2018 with the Invercargill City Council the council was left with some pondering. A decision was needed as to what to do with the reserve land nestled in amongst the sand dunes at Sandy Point.
It called for expressions of interest. Everything from a home for nudists to a drag racing track was suggested for the area.
The then Southern Institute of Technology chief executive Penny Simmonds viewed the vacant course as an opportunity. She
sparked an attempt to retain the links course and establish a turf management course to be run there.
The plan was to target the Asian market for international students.
SIT leased Oreti Sands for a year while it pursued the possibility of setting up the turf management course.
The council agreed to mow the fairways to a basic standard while the SIT explored its options.
However, Simmonds did not have the confidence to proceed. Those golfing plans came at a time when the Government started its quest to merge New Zealand’s polytechnics into one central entity.
The flickering hope that Oreti Sands would remain a golf course was extinguished.
Although out of that disappointment of a lost golf course has emerged one of the more impressive dog parks going around, even if it has never actually officially been labelled a dog park.
It’s now a hot spot for Invercargill dog owners. Dogs and their owners roam the abandoned 18-hole course in quiet bliss.
Emma Owen is one of the dog owners who discovered the abandoned golf course about a year ago through a friend. Owen and her two dogs, Spud and Frank, are now regulars.
‘‘The dogs just love it, and they all get on so well. Everybody is very friendly,’’ Owen says. ‘‘I’ll be honest I was feeling a bit down this morning and I thought, ‘right, I need to get to that dog park’. It just fills your bucket. We are so lucky to have it 10 minutes from town.’’
On top of Oreti Sands now unofficially being doggy heaven, other community groups also access the space for different events: the Southland Triathlon and Multisport Club and the Southland Orienteering Club, just to name a couple.
The once respected golf course is also now home to the Southland Astronomical Society. It’s their dream home, in fact.
Where golfers once teed off on the par 4 hole one – nervously looking at the hazard that is the sand dunes to the left – now sits an observatory for stargazers. The society has also put the former golf clubrooms to good use. That’s where it holds monthly meetings
Southland Astronomical Society Club president Elizabeth King remembers the day well when its club treasurer Bob Evans told them the golf club at Sandy Point was closing. It prompted a visit.
‘‘We could see the potential the minute we drove up, and it wasn’t being used by anyone apart from the golf club,’’ King says.
‘‘The light pollution in town was horrendous. So being on the outskirts of town you can see the Milky Way in all its glory – it’s phenomenal.
‘‘We couldn’t have asked for a better location that is still in reach of a good majority of the Southland community.’’
Horn – the former golf club president – acknowledges there are moments of sadness during the times he has revisited his old course since the 2018 closure.
But what softens the blow is the fact the public is still getting joy from the same 60 hectares of land that provided him so much joy for nearly 50 years.
It hasn’t been completely abandoned, and it isn’t overgrown. Horn is thankful for that and paid tribute to the council for ensuring that has not happened.
‘‘It’s getting harder to recognise as a golf course nowadays. It was a great course. It was an interesting course to play in true links country.
‘‘[But] you see a lot of people use it now to walk their dogs or for general exercise, and the
clubhouse is also being used. It is great to see.
‘‘It’s not a loss for the people of Invercargill, it’s just got a different use now. Whenever I go down [to Sandy Point] I know it’s there, and I know it’s being used by other people, that makes me feel good.’’
Another poignant sign attached to the clubhouse that remains intact points to a past hope, and in some minds potentially a lost opportunity. The sign thanks both the Invercargill Licensing Trust and Community Trust of Southland for funding an Oreti Sands course redevelopment close to a decade before it closed.
The sign also acknowledges the course redesigners, Greg Turner and Scott
Macpherson, who played a lead role in that project.
The Invercargill Licensing Trust and the Community Trust of Southland both stumped up $250,000 for the redevelopment. The pitch was that it was supposed to help attract more visitors to Invercargill to play at the world’s southernmost links course. Those visitors – in the numbers they had hoped – never arrived. Nor did the suggested spinoffs for Invercargill in general.
Top professional golfers Peter Senior, Peter O’Malley, Mahal Pearce and Peter Fowler played the course in March 2009 to officially open the redeveloped Oreti Sands.
They dished out plenty of praise at the time. Senior went as far as saying the course was similar to playing at the top links courses in Britain.
‘‘What a wonderful piece of land you’ve got here,’’ Senior said, almost nine years to the day before the course closed.
‘‘It will take some time for the grass to settle, but I’ve played in British Opens and this is on par with them,’’ he added.
Even when it became public in late 2017 that closure was the only realistic option, Turner continued to urge Invercargill to latch on to the tourism opportunity.
‘‘Clearly Oreti should be the jewel in the crown from a visitor point of view,’’ Turner said at the time.
‘‘The golf tourism sector in New Zealand is growing and if anybody is going to attract them to Invercargill it is Oreti [Sands].
‘‘The growth of tourism golf in New Zealand has been significant, but I would suspect not many of them that come here are aware of Oreti Sands.’’
Reflecting four years on, while disappointed closure had to occur, Horn remains comfortable that folding up the club and handing over the keys to the Oreti Sands course was the right decision.
‘‘When you look back now and think, ‘could we have done anything different?’ There’s simply no way we could have continued to keep that golf course going.
‘‘We couldn’t get enough club membership, and we couldn’t get enough visitors coming to Invercargill to justify the expense that was needed to maintain it,’’ Horn says.
The tough links course appealed to many golf writers and visitors that played it, but the nature of the course did not see Invercargill golfers flocking.
‘‘It was the furthest out of town for people to travel to, and it was perceived by a lot as being too difficult. There’s no question, when there was southwesterly or westerly blowing it was a challenging course to play.
‘‘It ticked the boxes for very enthusiastic golfers, but it got pretty hard for the average club golfer,’’ Horn says.
In 2000, the club had about 400 members. When it closed in 2018 it was at under 100.
The committee took measures to reduce costs to ensure the books balanced. It included in May 2015 removing their last paid position at the club, which was their greenkeeper.
But that simply added to the headaches. Club members picked up the slack through countless volunteer hours, with about 10 members helping maintain the 18-hole course.
It proved too much to handle. ‘‘It wasn’t sustainable,’’ Horn says.
When Oreti Sands was operating, Invercargill had four golf courses within its boundary catering to a city with a population of just over 50,000.
The remaining Queens Park, Invercargill and Green Acres clubs have had their own challenges attracting golfers and, in turn, covering expenses.
Many members of the Southland Golf Club transferred to the Invercargill Golf Club at Otatara when Oreti sands closed.
Horn was one of them. He now plays at the Invercargill Golf Club most Mondays and Wednesdays.
‘‘We were very welcomed by [Invercargill Golf Club], and I think they’ve benefited from the additional membership. We’ve been well looked after and contributed to their club as well,’’ Horn says.
‘‘We’ve all moved on. It’s like anything in life, it’s no good looking back and saying, ‘if only’. You move on and make the best of what you are.
‘‘Invercargill is well served by the other three golf courses. If anybody wants to get into a golf club they can, immediately.’’