The attractive rolling farmland that surrounds the Purangi Golf Club leads you to believe this country affair will be easily tamed.

The course is situated close to some of the great beaches on the Coromandel Peninsula. Hahei Beach is the gateway to Cathedral Cove. Cooks Beach is delightful and the legendary Hot Water Beach – it is legendary for people sitting in self-dug holes of hot water.

Catering to the locals and the holidaymakers this full-length nine-hole course is no pushover. 5,200 metres twice round, it is well worth feeding the honesty box with $20 for unlimited all-day golf.

In years gone by I believe livestock and fences were in place, I was expecting a rugged rural presentation. But wait, as I pulled up she was an attractive wee place and dressed to impress.

The greens were small – as expected in rural NZ – but very tidy, undulating and tricky to land on with your approach shots.

The first was a good opener, “MAUNGATAWHIRI” – there was a house on the edge of the fairway looking right at you. I’m sure the poor bugger who lived there has seen his share of golfers in his garden.

A simple little downhill par 4 at 274 metres -an easy way to get going for the day. I had a hard-fought and well earned triple bogey.

Purangi Golf Club is a very well presented golf course and the hole names were interesting enough.

The 2nd was called “Wrecker”, now we know this is a common name around the country for a golf hole. When it appears on the card as the second hole into your round, you have to worry.

There was a creek running through the course, it seemed to appear everywhere. The other natural hazards have to be managed carefully as you work your way around. Thankfully, some of the holes had good directional poles to keep you right. But some joker just put them in the middle of the fairway, which was accurate but may be a waste of a pole.

“The Gap” was truly that with trees offering you a space to find the green 155 Metres from the tee. The green wasn’t welcoming anything left and you are faced with a large drop off and a tricky chip.

The 4th was a long par 5 with the ever-present creek short of the green, guarding the silly 2nd shot aiming the green.

I was really enjoying this course, the surroundings, the difficult choices from tee boxes and tricky approaches all made for proper golf.

The 5th “Devil’s Point” was no Elbow. What the point was only the Devil will know. His plan for me was a double bogey. Scoring here is tough my friends. A nice looking hole only God could have made. I thought right them that there is no Devil just God when he is drunk. It made sense at the time.

“Pine Lake ” was my hole of the day. A par 4 at 327 metres. Firstly the lake of pines to be avoided from the tee were cool enough. A downhill shot at the green needed to avoid the creek ( of course) – an attractive part of the course too.

The 7th was a delightful par 3 ” The Dell” – I found a cool wee bunker next to the green.

Next, I had to mentally wrestle with “Temptation” – a shortish par 5 but needing a belter of a tee shot to an uphill fairway to have a chance to get up to the green in two.

There were Turkeys on the green. I was not surprised by anything that Purangi Golf Club had for me. I bagged a par and was happy with that. The course was teaching me a lesson for sure.

“Punchbowl ” is an uphill 159 Metres to finish you off. A delightful hole with a rustic bunker.

Well done to the team at Purangi Golf Club, you have a great golf course. I’ll be back when you fill in the creek.

The on-course toilet was presented well, so adding to the excellent day out.

The town of Coromandel is a big focus for the latest COVID lockdown. The Coromandel Golf Club should be open as a welcome relief to the good people of this town. If there is a sport that should be exempt from restrictions we all know it should be golf.

This course is a wee bit special. All the holes are named after a gold mine according to the history lesson on the wall of the clubrooms. I wonder if “Try Again” the 10th was a failed 2nd attempt at a gold mine I’d like to think it is.

Just on the edge of town, the course is an unassuming affair. “Scotties” the opener is a simple straightforward par 4. Make the most of this as each hole has its own character – just like a gold mine – I’d imagine.

The 2nd, “Hauraki” takes you straight back to the clubrooms, good if you left your sandwich in the car. A gentle downhill par 4 with a couple of nice-looking bunkers at the green.

A nice run from here, down “Bunker Hill”, up “Union Beach” and a great drive off “Tokatea” – a par 5 which should be a scoring hole if you can keep your cool off the tee. This is a nice and challenging part of the course.

The 5th takes you back to the clubrooms, good if you left your drink in the car!

The 6th is the start of the best of the course, it is called “Success” without knowing the history the hole didn’t look like success. Uphill to an elevated green (again) short but shitty – we all know someone like that.

The par 5 7th and the brilliant downhill par 3 8th leave you enjoying every bit of this golf course. Ending on “Slaughterhouse” is much better than the old standard elsewhere called “Wrecker”.

I find this course very different across the 9 holes. The greens are in good nick, the hole names are some of the coolest around. I like the number of times you get back to the clubrooms. Good for never getting caught short, grabbing a chocolate bar, a cold beer, or fresh pencil.

Definitely worthy of making the Top Nine Holes in New Zealand. A really good place to be, so get out and support our regional courses, when the lockdown levels drop.

If you meet a politician then have a word in their shell-like. Golf should be free to play at any level, if you can ride your bike for exercise then the pleasure of a round of golf will keep the morale of New Zealand up in these tough times.

The town of Paeroa is world-famous in New Zealand since ages ago. I have never been to this legend of a town and I was a bit excited driving down the main street. The Paeroa Golf Club is 6 km from the massive L&P bottle in the heart of the town. Paeroa town is more than just a fizzy drink, there is interesting shopping and it has a cool vibe.

The course was very quiet, sitting lonely at Rotokohu, in the Valley of the Mist. It was a beautifully clear hot day, no idea where that name came from, not today anyway.

The history of Paeroa Golf Club has been very well documented in the “Century of Golf Strokes” published for the centenary celebrations in 2004. It was a pleasure to be playing a golf course with such a rich history and at the heart of the local community.

There is a par 3 to start, just like Thames Golf Club I like this unusual choice of starting hole.

The next 3 holes have a boundary fence tight to the right-hand side of the fairway. I would recommend leaving your slice in the car.

Following the short starter, it gets serious on the 2nd, the longest hole on the course a 482 metre par 5.

And wakey wakey the 3rd is another monster par 5 at 466 metres. Fully warmed up now, I enjoyed the run through the 4th-6th, “Summit” had a great looking approach to the narrow green.

“Elbow” the 5th need a power fade to slide around the corner and get up near the green on the short par 4. I enjoyed the drive here, blind from an elevated tee box.

The hole of the day was the spectacular 6th. There was water on the right and bush on the left to attract your eye. But the view across “Chasm” was enticing. 133 metres down across the steep valley, just lovely in a lovely part of the world.

A new local tee, – the L&P Tee – is slightly high but encourages you to hit up on the ball.

The ninth is a cool hole with a tight corridor of trees to negotiate from the tee. The green is protected by a stream and a couple of well placed bunkers.

The back nine starts with a “Westward Ho” – I have been critical of this hole name previously. From reading the 100 year history of the club this name was in place many years ago. So maybe I need to nod to the past and pull my head in.

But what I did discover from the pages is that the 3rd was called “Donga” in 1948. In 2004 they dropped this name in favour of “The Pines” – good bye Donga and good riddance. ! That’s one for the record books, other clubs take note you can alter your past and move your club forward with better hole names, come on…..

The back nine has good scoring opportunities with mid-length par 4’s and generous fairways. The far end of the course brings you back up stroke hole 1, the 14th, “Homeward” needs 2 good shots to get up to the green.

The closing 4 should set up your card, if you haven’t run out of puff. So keep a can of the good lemony stuff on hand to power you home.

18 is a short 286-metre par 4 taking you back to the clubrooms. “Journey’s End” is apt, enjoy the peace of the valley and remember those that have gone before. A great kiwi classic with a little fizz.

The Kopu Bridge that crosses the Waihou River into the Coromandel is the gateway to Thames. This was the busiest one-laned bridge affair in the country, until 2012 when the new bridge was completed with 2 full lanes.

I stopped before the bridge to fill up the tank and get provisions, unsure if I’d find an open clubhouse at the golf club with drinks on show. The man at the gas station was stout and had a baritone tonality to his voice. Deep but smooth as he bid me a good day.

A quiet car park at Thames Golf Club, but the golf shop was open, I felt a little disquiet as I wasn’t for adding any revenue to the club on this occasion. The lady in the clubhouse shop was dressed in shocking pink and welcomed us with husky gravel in her timbre.

Was there something about this area that attracted this type? Golf club manager by day – Jazz singer by night? She was interested, like most Jazz singers. Where we were from and do we know the course?

I bought a pitch marker repair tool with the Thames Golf Club logo on to make up for the previous lack of confidence in the drink supply.

She pointed out that we start playing toward the hill and this loops back into the flat of the early part of the course. The back nine is back out towards the hill for another loop.

From the car park, I thought the course was on the flat, no she affirmed not so flat. It does venture up the hill. Not quite as testing as the Pinnacles – a local stiff climb which needs a ladder ascent near the summit to get you up top.

Near Death Experience

I played a few weeks back with a couple of older chaps. The conversation turned to which golf courses were the hardest walking. This quickly led onto which course had put my playing partner in the hospital. Waitakere was the obvious first choice. He nodded and mentioned the 18th at Maungakiekie, and how he fell over at Pupuke, ” you need one long leg and one short leg to play there every week.”

Thames Golf Club was not that bad! A few hills out the back of the course to get the thirst up but generally manageable without a cart.

A flat start and a 163-metre par 3, I was glad of this. The driver had a month of excellence but has recently hit a speed bump. Bryson Dechambeau won the US open with only a 41% driving accuracy. I was doing the same but just significantly further from the green.

I had a lesson with the trusty Ross, which gave me a focus on how to straighten the long stick somewhat. We all know it takes 2 games and some practice to get out the other side of a lesson. This was game 1 – it could spell danger!

The course here looks like a simple affair. There was only a handful of game souls out there on the day. So I was full of inaccurate assumptions that it wasn’t much of a course.

The elevation changes start a the 3rd, 15 metres up from tee to green. Then another 10 metres up on the 4th.

The 5th is from an elevated tee in case your legs hadn’t had enough. A 295 metre dogleg par 4. A sloping fairway and tricky green made this shorty much harder than it appeared on first viewing.

The course has 7 par 4’s 300 metres or under. This should make for good scoring if you can get your drive in the right place. My driver was doing okay following the lesson, but I wasn’t feeling it. Too much thinking was getting in the way.

The front nine was a success due to a good run of pars, including a nice par on the 8th – “The Drop” a 169 metre (all downhill) par 3 – followed by a nice birdie on the par 5 nineth. I felt good about my score at the 10th tee, only 3 over the card.

Our Jazz singer appeared on the 10th tee, “not as flat as you thought eh?” she improvised.

Getting Jazzy

Following on from a front nine to be (quite) proud of, the back nine took a hold of me. I slowly realised that my golf life was like being in a big Jazz band. The marriage of golf and music came to me as I hit an off-tempo slice into the trees on the 11th.

I knew my golf game was inconsistent, it was proud and daring and stupid and brilliant. I couldn’t just learn a simple rhythm and stick to it. Always tweaking or improvising. Never happy with the pop song cookie-cutter approach.

I am Jazz in a golfer. There no definitive explanation or definition of what Jazz is. The Jazz musician has a keen sense of improvisation that allows them to thwart all attempts of confinement.

A long line of questions around where the term Jazz comes from has provided no answers. One hundred years of the birth of Jazz was celebrated in 2017, the answers to the questions of its origin and what it actually is, remain elusive.

It is spontaneous, improvised, a syncopation of ideas. This is the accenting of a note that usually would not be accented. Often described as offbeat, the true essence of Jazz. If this is not my golf game I don’t what is.

Add the realisation, the “swing” is a large part of what Jazz is and I now agree with myself that golf is Jazz. The spontaneity of Jazz allows a Jazz man to have no planning, he can walk into a Jazz “Club” that he has never visited, with guys he has never seen, and just play. Golf affords the same luxury.

When you look at a hole called “Temptation” (the 5th ) or the “Devil’s Elbow” ( the 12th) – these are risk or reward holes. If you have seen La La Land – the jazz pianist Seb frets endlessly about what is and isn’t jazz – “it’s conflict and it’s compromise, it’s new every time…” Yip that’s Jazz and that’s the choice between the Driver or the 6 iron, conflict, compromise and a new outcome every time.

I stumbled through the back nine, not playing to my full potential or to the audience. But I really enjoyed this part of the course.

There were 4 cracking risk or reward drives, a short par 5 and a cool 100 metre directly up par 3, called “Summit.” This was the opposite twin of “The Drop” on the front nine.

I’m not sure how I dropped 7 shots over the nine holes to put me back in the pack, but I enjoyed the ride.

Devil’s Elbow required a clever iron off the tee and a precise wedge into the green. The course for me came to life on the back nine and filled me with the jingling sound of a great golf course.

I think running through the hole names of a course gives you a sense of what is in store. Thames had all the classics, including “Donga”, an overly used name that should be impeached. It means a dried up ravine formed by an action of water. Why is it so prevalent across the country?

I do favour the “Hopeful” and “Calamity” they no doubt are phycological warfare on the weak minded golfer.

Back to the quality of Thames Golf Club, it is a great course over some lovely countryside. If you are crossing the bridge into the Coromandel swerve off and enjoy all that this course has to offer.