This rural course just 10 minutes from wine country of Kemu. Good to see a carpark full as I pulled up to Helensville Golf Club. Surrounded by farmland and a little off the beaten track you would wonder whether this was a true country course.
The set up here is great, nice club rooms and bar. I grabbed a quick sausage roll before kick off – a sausage roll can set you up for a good round. There are many culinary opinions on the humbled sausage roll. I have observed overly lite crumbling films of pastry, bite into this in the wrong wind conditions and puff! the air will fill with shard’s of flying pastry. A sausage roll loaded with vegetables, who are you trying to please? Buying a pre-round sausage roll you want firm pastry and sausage inside, not carrot and sweetcorn – it’s not a veggie filo after all. So hats off to the Helensville kitchen a good job well done!
Following a bit of banter with the fellow in the shop. He gave me good info about the course. Unusually so, people who know their surroundings tend to assume you should be just as clued up. He helped me into a trundler for the day. Shh don’t tell anyone.
Helensville’s front 9 loops around the outside of the course and the back nine loops inside. We talked about there being too many courses in the area to be sustainable for everyone. Maybe he was right; maybe we need to work harder to bring our game into the modern environment and more appealing to the world as it is today.
Helensville Golf club was a friendly old place, mostly everyone we met were keen to share a word or two. There had been a bit of rain during the week and winter was coming, so to speak. But the course showed no signs of this. An easy walk in the main through established tree lined fairways. The greens were in great nick, sand based and true to putt on from 1 to 18. Underfoot was damp but the fairways provided a great surface to play from.
I hit a lot of fairways today off the tee. Thereafter I struggled to get down for a par. One day all of the moving parts will move together. Once I got to the 14th I threatened to play well, but too late to make an impression.
Every golf course has it’s amen corner, 3 in a row that frame the course’s identity.
The signature 6th hole is lovely 163 metre par 3 over a water hazard to a 2 tiered green. Followed by the par 4 7th, OB all down the left, making for a squeaky bum tee shot to a tight fairway.
The 8th is a par 5 and stroke hole 1 – Out of bounds down the left side of the 475 metre slightly up hill hole – it sweeps around to the right- the approach shot into the green is tough to an uphill plateaued green which you won’t see unless you skirt with the OB on the left. A 5 there is worth talking about. Didn’t get a 5.
You can hear the cow bell from the 12th as you play around Helensville, reassuring you that there is life out there.
I was playing off 15 following my anniversary tournament nightmare; I shaved 3 shots off this to post a net 68 on the par 71 course.
The balcony at the upstairs clubhouse is a perfect spot to watch the players come up the 18th we drank a refreshment and took in the late afternoon sun, until a vicious hail storm chased us away home.
