Cape Kidnappers Golf Course

The Course:
Tom Doak, President of Renaissance Golf Design Inc, designed the course using his minimalist design philosophy - characterized by the utilization of natural topographical features and restraint in earthmoving.

The goal in designing the course was to create interesting holes you wouldn't find anywhere else. That wasn't hard to do at Cape Kidnappers, because the site is not like anywhere else in golf. It's an overwhelming experience to stand up on the cliffs, 140 metres above sea level, and look out across the waves far below in Hawke Bay.













Cape Kidnappers is not true links terrain, with the wrinkles of sand dunes; instead the land tilts toward the sea as a series of ridges jutting out toward the edge of the cliffs. Yet, the play is seaside golf at its finest. The surface is firm and fast, the conditions can be windy, and the player who can control his trajectory will be master of the course. You'll hit shots over the tops of the tea trees, and play along the edges of deep ravines. If you stray on your approaches, you'll actually hope to get caught up in bunkers hanging off the green's edge, some of them deeper than you've ever seen before.














At the twelfth and fifteenth you'll play right out to land's end, and three times you'll have to make the perilous leap from the end of one ridge to the end of the next. And at the sixth and fifteenth holes it's possible to pull your approach off the very end of the earth, though it will take nearly ten seconds of hang time for your ball to reach the ocean below.

My favourite hole is the 'signature' hole - the 15th 'Pirate's Plank. The first time I played Kidnappers, the resident pro told us to hit 3 seven irons! The key to this long par five is staying in the fairway as there is a 140 m drop on the left and 20 m on the right! If you can keep it short but down the middle, you might just escape with a par.