Some land asks for golf and some land simply hands it over. When Bill Coore first saw the property at Tomarata, he called it "a great gift" and "a uniquely special site for golf," and the South course at Te Arai, opened in 2022, still carries the glow of that first impression. Ric Kayne and Jim Rohrstaff, already involved at nearby Tara Iti, decided in 2020 to develop more of their 3,400 acres along the North Island coast, nearly seven miles of dunes and ocean. The difference this time was the gate. Anyone can come. Coore and Ben Crenshaw were greedy at first, in the best way. Coore's original routing swallowed all 2.5 miles of coastline, leaving nothing on the water for the course that would follow. Then he gave about a third of that frontage away to Tom Doak for the North. It was a generous act. He kept enough to put eight holes as close to the Pacific as environmental rules would allow, and from sixteen of the eighteen you can see the ocean. The dunes here run in long, linear ridges, and the golf has to follow them. Half the oceanfront holes march north and half come back south, a parallel rhythm the land insisted on and the architects navigated with care. Each nine saves its crescendo for the shore, with holes 6 through 9 and 15 through 18 sitting right on the water. A great ridgeline cuts through a large part of the course too. You climb it on the short par-four 3rd, a hike up a towering dune, and then the 4th tumbles down the far side toward the sea. That 4th was never supposed to exist in this form. The plan was a par three down the hill and a short par four toward what is now the 5th green. Coore looked at the slope and decided to take it on with a single par four instead, and the hole is bold, breathtaking, falling toward the water. What follows is the 157-yard 5th, one of a pair of spectacular par threes along with the 195-yard 12th. Much of the character came in the late stages of construction, as the course kept changing under the builders' hands. The 6th green, another short par four, grew larger at the owners' suggestion. On the 14th, a central mound that ate into the putting surface was turned into a bunker. And at the short par-four 16th, the owners favored an upper left green site while Coore and his associate John Hawker preferred a lower right one. Nobody had to choose. They built both, joined into one massive, multi-tiered green, so the two preferences live on in the hole itself, and you play it every round. Hawker and Riley Johns carried out most of the work in the field and helped build putting surfaces with more character and internal slope than Coore and Crenshaw designs usually show. Holes like the 4th, 6th, 7th, 14th and 16th are extremely bold and wildly fun to play. The 7th doglegs right as a par five, and the 18th veers left to close, the last note of a finishing stretch where Coore reserved some of the most diverse and attractive dunes on the property for the final seven holes. Beneath it all is fine fescue from tee to green, tended by Kiwi superintendent Mitch Northin. The turf is uniform enough that you can run a ball along the ground or fly it in through the air, and both shots have their place. That is the deepest pleasure of the South. The views would be enough on their own, but here the scenery is only the beginning, and on a coast this beautiful, the golf still manages to hold your eye.