Arrowtown Golf Club

Overview: Arrowtown Golf Club is an 18-hole, par-70 course at the foot of the Crown Range, close to the historic gold-mining town and within sight of the Remarkables and Coronet Peak. The course is compact by modern championship standards, but its narrow rolling fairways, small greens, rocky ground and changes in elevation make the routing varied. Holes weave through valleys, around boulders and across natural gorges, with the surrounding Central Otago landscape doing much of the visual work. The absence of conventional bunkers gives the course a particularly clear identity: the landforms and rock around the greens provide the hazards.

History: A group of 12 people formed the club in 1935 and acquired 90 acres for a nine-hole course. The early work was carried out with rakes, wheelbarrows and hand mowers, and the course had to be maintained by the people who built it. More land was acquired in 1971, allowing the layout to expand to 18 holes. Golf New Zealand records Reg Romans and B.V. Wright as the designers, while course records identify B.V. Wright with the second nine. The present course therefore combines an early local foundation with a later expansion that completed the 18-hole routing.

Did You Know? Stone cottage ruins stand among the trees on the property, linking the golf course to the pioneer history of Arrowtown. The course also has no bunkers in the conventional sense, so rocky surrounds, narrow corridors and small greens carry much of the strategic pressure.