Wanganui Golf Club 125 year's Young
In his 1971 book “Golf in New Zealand” celebrating the centennial of the game in this country, author G.M.Kelly wrote that the Wanganui Golf Club’s Belmont course resonated of those links courses in Scotland, with great features of strength and simplicity.
Half a century on and Kelly’s words are worth recalling.
The Wanganui Golf Club is one of New Zealand's oldest courses and last October celebrated its 125th anniversary. The Belmont course has hosted major national tournaments throughout those years, most notably the NZ Open Championships on seven occasions between 1911 and 1978.
The course presents a real challenge for players of all abilities, and is enjoyed by all those who play it's sand-based fairways. The club has two distinctly differing nine holes of undulating rolling fairways to the flatter almost links like back nine and is renowned for the quality of its greens.
Set on the outskirts of Whanganui city, the Belmont links provide superb views of the Tasman Sea. But be warned; the prevailing westerly also has a bite and golfers need to bring their whole game with them. Measuring over 6000m from the back tees, this par 70 course provides the ultimate challenge for any golfer
The Wanganui Golf Club boasts a modern, well appointed clubhouse offering unsurpassed views of the back eight holes of the course, out to the city’s iconic Bastia Hill water tower and eastern hill suburbs. It is also a perfect venue for functions and non-golf events.
Praise for the course has come from some notables in the game, such as international course designers. Tom Doak said course highlights for him were 2nd green from its elevated tee shot dropping onto a green with a steep fall at the left front. “So too the tumbling par-4 5th, and the short 9th wedged into a little corner of ground with cows grazing on the hill behind the green.”
Clyde Johnson said the Belmont links must rate as the North Island’s best provincial course “by a relative margin”. Johnson also talked up the second hole: “At the toe of a spur it’s bettered only by the up and over two-shot 10th.
Belmont is ranked one of the top two courses in the Whanganui-Manawatu region. Apart from the holes Doak and Johnson mentioned, the course boasts five holes which offer blind tee shots. One of those is the 11th, a par 5 which starts with a blind tee shot from above a steep bluff. And then there’s the 18th - arguably one of the toughest finishing holes in the country, with the distance, a fairway ridge at the halfway point and the prevailing westerly winds. The course was rated among the top 25 courses by NZ Golf Digest last year.
Former NZ Open champion and touring professional Simon Owen played at Belmont as well as the late Bryan Silk, regarded as the country’s most outstanding amateur. At the club’s 125th anniversary celebrations last year, Silk was inducted into the NZ Golf Hall of Fame.
