Queenstown’s latest championship golf course starts site works

Site works have teed off for Queenstown’s latest championship golf course.

The yet-to-be-named golf and residential resort — being developed by the family of local tourism and property heavyweight Sir John Davies — is on 158.8 hectares off Hogans Gully Rd, near Arrowtown.

The “enabling works” — ahead of residential and golf course construction starting later this year — include new rabbit fencing, internal fence removal, vegetation clearance, pest control, and the start of roadworks to install slip lanes at the entrances to the property.

“We hope to have a name and a logo soon, which will provide an identity to this amazing new asset to the region,” newly-hired golf course superintendent Ben Taylor, formerly of neighbouring golf course The Hills, says.

Ryan Brandeburg, who’s running the project, says “The property’s actually pretty void of the landscape for the most part — it’s really, primarily, a rock farm in its simplest sense”.

“So what we really want to do is try and expose a lot of that and build the golf around it.

“This is going to take that Central Otago schisty, rocky [look] and really put that front and centre, so we definitely have a point of difference between us and the others in town.”

Brandeburg says there’s no doubt another local course is required.

Queenstown already captures about 60% of all inbound golf tourism into New Zealand, “and if you look at it over the last couple of years, that demand is only going up, not down”.

Brandeburg says the course — designed by Arrowtown course designer and former golf pro Greg Turner — is likely to be in play from 2027.

Meanwhile, the resort’s also consented to 76 homes, in clusters — 16 solely for visitor accommodation and 60 for a combination of visitor and residential accommodation.