Remuera — Days in the Life

Remuera Golf Club Days in the life

Remuera Golf Club

Photographed by

Mark Meredith

Remuera Golf Club – Days in the life This book is a celebration of a special golf club: your golf club. It aims to capture the singular beauty that can be found at Remuera, a members course laid out in the middle of an Auckland suburb by local golf course designer Harold Babbage in 1971.

Despite its fairly ordinary setting there are certain times of day when this golf course is so transformed by the ambience of natural light that you might easily feel you were in a location far removed from its urban environment, such is its serenity and simple allure.

Light and shadow manipulate the well-planned contours that golf course architects strive to produce, to the misery of players such as you and me. The bumps and hollows that throw carefully considered approach shots horribly awry are shown up in sharp relief by the light of a setting or rising sun. Bunkers take on a predatory form, open mouths awaiting, while the broad expanses of fairways are broken by shadows caressing their uniformity with shifting fingers of light and darkness. And, in the distance, the Holy Grail of the sunlit flag atop the cup on a contoured green waits to swallow those who dare to dream: the triumph of par or less – or to have that ambition repelled for another weekend.

The photographs in this book were taken between 2010 and 2013 and at the time of going to press significant restructuring of the par 4, 7th hole, was taking place. The alterations of this picturesque hole are in line with the continued efforts to improve Remuera Golf Club, witnessed by the recent rebuilding of the 4th, 5th and 6th holes and the addition of the all-weather driving range.

Golf courses are dynamic entities which never stand still, shifting and changing through the seasons and by the hour. They are put down upon the land to test our resolve, our patience and our skill, at the same time imbuing these pursuits with the comforting delight of playing upon a stage unrivalled in modern sport for its evolving beauty, wherever it may be set and in whatever mood nature decides to present it.

Mark Meredith

1 18th fairway and clubhouse, sunrise

2

Looking down the 16th, sunrise

Early morning shadows sweep the 8th green

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Uphill and onwards, to glory

Evening on the 6th

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A Holy Grail: to par the 17th

But first put the ball on the green – in one

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The par 4, 7th hole, photographed in 2012

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Sunrise over the 10th green

The 18th green, morning

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Glorious summer day on the front nine

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Afternoon on the remodelled 6th hole

Looking back up the 5th fairway

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Remuera inhabitants

Other inhabitants

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Shadows paint the 1st fairway on a beautiful summer afternoon

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Remodelled 4th green, sundown

4th green looking back, evening

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Dawn by the lake

Morning by the lake

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18th fairway at sunrise

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Summer sunrise over the 16th and 17th holes

16th green, late afternoon

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Back nine moonrise

8th green, framed, sunrise

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The 8th green – prettiest on the course?

Promise of a beautiful day, 18th fairway, morning

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The 7th hole before reconstruction, early morning

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Shadows at play on the 16th, afternoon

Sunset on the 10th

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The new 5th green, afternoon

Threesomes

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The picturesque 10th again, mottled in afternoon shadows

Late afternoon on the back nine

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Last chip of the day, 18th green

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Across the water

8th green from the 6th fairway, afternoon

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Par 3 third perspectives

Evening slopes of the old 7th hole

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Approaching the sunlit 16th

Sunset, 18th tee

Day’s end on the 10th

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