Mount opens the second-biggest practice green in the country

Mount Maunganui Golf Club unveiled a new practice green in April 2025, built by Tataurangi Golf as the centrepiece of the club's $3 million Dunes development. At 6,000 square metres, it ranks as the second-biggest practice green in the country and among the largest of its kind anywhere in the world — a serious statement of intent from a club investing in its future. Building a green at that scale is a different engineering challenge to a standard course green. Tataurangi Golf worked through an extensive shaping and drainage design to give the surface the contour variety needed for genuine practice value — run-offs, tiers, subtle borrows and a range of hole locations that let members rehearse everything from a 40-metre pitch to a testing 15-metre breaking putt, all on the one green. Beneath the surface, a comprehensive drainage network and irrigation system were built to keep a green of this size playing consistently in Mount Maunganui's coastal climate, through both summer growth and winter wet. The practice green was delivered as the second stage of the wider Dunes development, following on from new driving range facilities completed in the project's first stage. Together, the two stages give Mount members and visitors 15 outdoor hitting bays and two ball-tracking simulator bays alongside the new green — a complete practice facility that covers full-swing work, simulator-based technical analysis and short-game practice in one precinct. Delivering a project of this scale on a live, operating golf club brought its own logistical demands. Staging the works to keep disruption to members' golf to a minimum, sequencing the driving range and green construction, and coordinating shaping, drainage, irrigation and grassing crews across both stages required careful project management from Tataurangi Golf from the earliest planning through to handover. The finished facility gives Mount Maunganui Golf Club one of the most complete practice set-ups in New Zealand golf, built to support everyone from junior members working on their short game to serious competitors preparing for tournament golf. It's a project that reflects Tataurangi Golf's growing focus not just on new course design, but on the practice and training infrastructure that keeps a club's membership improving and engaged.