TE ARAI LINKS, New Zealand – Strong winds off the Pacific made scoring difficult all week at Te Arai Links, leaving only four golfers under par heading into the final stretch.
Jim Rohrstaff, the Managing Director at Te Arai Links, said the course performed just as the team hoped it would.
Jim Rohrstaff
The Managing Director of Te Arai Links
“We’re absolutely thrilled with where we’re at,” Rohrstaff said. “You know, there are four players in red figures, which we thought, if the weather cooperated, that we’d see some really low scores out here, and that hasn’t really come to fruition. We’ve had some big winds on Thursday, Friday. Yesterday was a beautiful day, very manageable, but some more difficult hole locations. The course is playing exceptional and I think people are really seeing it for what it is, which is a phenomenal links golf course.”
Bringing an event run by The R&A and the Masters Tournament to the venue took nearly four years of planning, starting back in late 2022. However, Rohrstaff noted that hosting big tournaments was never the main goal when the facility was built.
“First discussion was December of 2022,” Rohrstaff said. “And that would have been with The R&A and with the Masters Tournament. And so that goes back almost four years now. And you know, there’s just been a continuing string of conversations about how do we host an event like this here? We did not plan on being a host venue to large-scale events like this.”
Despite that, working alongside staff from Augusta National and The R&A turned into a major learning experience for the local crew.
“They’ve been incredible to work with,” Rohrstaff said. “I mean, they’re the most professional institutions in the game of golf. And for us, I think having our team work side by side with them has been – I think everybody will record this in their career as one of the highlights and milestones.”
The tournament took place during a strong stretch for New Zealand golf. Local fans had plenty to watch on Sunday, with two Kiwi players playing in the final group.
“I think for New Zealand golf, it’s been a banner year for us,” Rohrstaff said. “We’ve talked about this with Daniel Hillier winning the New Zealand Open to kick the year off for us, Foxy winning, and now having two Kiwis on the leaderboard here in the final group. You know, we’ve never had a Kiwi bring it home. So, we’d love to see that. And if that doesn’t happen today, it doesn’t change the tournament for us. It’s spectacular.”
Despite the week’s success, Rohrstaff made it clear that management isn’t rushing to fill the calendar with tour events. The club recently ran its third Cisco pro-am, but the core focus remains everyday play and club life.
“Our ambitions are really lying in the fact that we wanted to create a great place where people can come together, celebrate the game of golf and all the other great activities you can do here at Te Arai Links,” he said. “So for us, we don’t really have tournament ambitions. This came together. This was a perfect event for us to host. Who knows what will happen next? We had a wonderful pro-am Cisco series event here just about three and a half weeks ago that went really, really well. It was the third edition that we’ve done with them. I would imagine that’ll continue on. But as far as other things, we’ll be patient. We’ll do our thing day-to-day here and see what comes next.”
Ultimately, Rohrstaff saw the week as a chance to show the area to golfers from overseas, especially the Auckland region just down the road.
“For New Zealand golf, it’s fun to have the world see this place,” Rohrstaff said. “Te Arai Links in particular, but to see New Zealand, to see all the great sites here. It’s such a wonderful destination for people from around the world. And we love to share it. We love to bring people in. So for us, I think sharing Auckland in particular—that’s not a destination that people have typically come to for tourism in New Zealand, but we who live in Auckland know how special the city is, and it’s good that they get a little glimpse of that this week.”