DUBAI — A little more than a year from now, an amateur will have a putt to win the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at one of the world’s most sought-after new golf courses to get into the 2027 Masters and 155th Open Championship at St. Andrews.
No pressure.
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The Asia-Pacific Amateur will head to New Zealand’s Te Arai Links South for the 2026 edition, Augusta National and the R&A announced Thursday. The two organizations jointly created the APAC in 2009 as an initiative to grow golf around the world.
Moments after the 16th Asia-Pacific Amateur teed off at the Emirates Golf Club on Thursday, Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley and R&A CEO Mark Darbon revealed its selection of the Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw course, located 75 minutes north of Auckland. The championship will be held Oct. 29–Nov. 1.
The news was sure to set tongues wagging in golf course architecture circles given the Te Arai South’s ranking of 40th in Golf Digest’s World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses in 2024. Opened in 2022, the links-style course with 16 holes facing the Pacific Ocean has not yet hosted a major international tournament.
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Ridley and Darbon said bringing the event to Te Arai would add a layer of anticipation to the region’s biggest amateur tournament, which counts Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama as a past champion.
“The fact that venues such as this actually want to have this championship, I think is a validation of how far we’ve come,” Ridley said. “I think we are going to see more great venues around the world.
“That’s really one of the key inspirations to these young [amateurs]. I know I remember when I was growing up as a young amateur golfer, to go to an historic, in our case, the U.S. Open venue, for example, really added to the excitement. Having these wonderful venues that we are invited to really adds to the prestige of this championship.”
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Nick Wall
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Ricky Robinson
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Ricky Robinson
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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Te Arai Links: South Course Tomarata, Auckland, New Zealand
The courses at Te Arai are cousins of Tara Iti, a private course that jumped to No. 2 in the ranking shortly after it opened in 2015 (it’s currently seventh). The two public resort courses are situated roughly five miles to the south along the same long stretch of Pacific beach, where Bill Coore’s figure-eight routing of the spellbinding South Course begins in a forest behind a wall of inland sand dunes before exploding onto the oceanfront headlands stringing parts or all of 10 tumbling, rambling holes along the sea. View Course
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Te Arai Links was developed by Legacy Partners, the creator of world-renowned Tara Iti, which is located north along the same beach as Te Arai. Te Arai Links has multiple restaurants and accommodation onsite, meaning competitors won’t need to leave the property.
“Te Arai’s South Course is an exceptional venue and will provide a fantastic test of golf in a spectacular location,” Darbon said. “You’ve seen the scale of this championship, a lot of infrastructure is required. That means space. There’s significant accommodation and logistical requirements. So we have a number of factors to balance as we stage this brilliant championship, and we’ll continue to factor all of those in as we make our future choices.”
The par-72 South Course meanders through sand dunes along the Pacific Ocean on firm, fast fescue turf. The last time the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship was played in New Zealand was at Royal Wellington Golf Club in 2017.
Jim Rohrstaff, managing partner at Te Arai Links, said the inspiration to host the Asia-Pacific Amateur was born during a trip to the 2023 tournament at Royal Melbourne Golf Club’s Composite course and mutually enthusiastic discussions began shortly after.
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“To be able to showcase our property around the globe with the expertise of the Masters broadcast team is a dream come true,” Rohrstaff said. “Having an event with the best amateur golfers in the Asia Pacific region is going to be phenomenal against the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean. This is an opportunity for our team to learn what goes into a world-class tournament.”
