CSB - Michael Donaldson - Sweet Spot book

From the sunbaked turf of Kaitāia to the reclaimed riverbed of Tīeke, the undulating sand dunes of Paraparaumu to the jagged schist of Roxburgh, the deceptive might of Waitara to the sprawling glory of The Hills—the essence of New Zealand golf is found in the bones of the land.

Walking across this astonishing geography, searching for the quintessential New Zealand golfing experience, Michael Donaldson and Phil Hamilton encountered an array of fascinating people, places and history. Sweet Spot is the result—a careful selection of their very best courses, exquisitely captured by renowned landscape photographer Arno Gasteiger.

A landmark publication, Sweet Spot celebrates the art, beauty and design of Aotearoa’s breathtaking golfing terrain like never before.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The country, sport breakfasts, weekly tea off, golf coverage with
Crown Trade up to a new Crown forklift, simply the best.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
There's time to talk golf on the show now with
a man who we generally talked about beer with and
his name is Michael Donaldson, who's involved in a specialist
beer magazine, The Pursuit of Happiness. But Michael also is
a golfing fanatic and he's written a book called sweet Spot,
thirty six iconic golf courses that celebrate the best of

(00:31):
New Zealand. Michael joins us this morning morning, Michael, Kay, Brian,
how are you very well? Thank you? How did you
whistle down thirty six golf courses from the something like
four hundred plus that we have in New Zealand? Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:44):
I know. Look, so it's been a project I just
started way way back before COVID was even a thing
we'd heard of. So it's been a long winding road
to get to where we are today, finally published. And
my co author, Phil Hamilton, who's a former sports writer

(01:05):
sort of like myself. We used to work together in
the sports desk at the Australian Associated Press in Sydney,
even going way back to twenty odd years ago. But anyway,
Phil wanted to do fifty, and it was like crikee
fifty you know, the budget for photography, et cetera, et cetera.
So thirty six became a little bit like logistic and

(01:26):
budget driven. How many could we get around? And once
we sort of started to get into that territory, you know,
fifty down to forty, then thirty six and then it
was like, oh, hey, what about eighteen in each island?
You know, eighteen holes of golf and so it just
became a natural landing point for there's eighteen North Island
and eighteen South Island and you know, maybe let's say

(01:49):
it represents ten percent of their golf courses in New Zealand.
So hopefully it's a nice representation of the breadth of
golf in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Not only not only you know, the words in the
book that you and Phil have put together, but the
photography is absolutely magnificent.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Oh thank you, Brian. Yeah, like that was we really
wanted to get something different to a lot of modern
golf photography, which a lot of it relies on drone
imagery and you know, you see all those beautiful shots
up on high and golf courses look quite abstract, if
you like, and we wanted to get down at ground

(02:30):
level and almost do it. The golfer would see it
and have a very natural look at the land. And
so we've got a guy called Arno Gasteiger. He's a
sort of renowned New Zealand photographer and he's done. He
did a really cool book on rugby, actually sort of
rural rugby grounds and people playing rugby, beautifully shot and

(02:53):
the same kind of aesthetic applies to this. And Arno
he didn't know a lot about golf when he started,
but we wanted that kind of innocence, if you like.
So I think he's done a remarkable job capturing the
light and the shadows and the shape of the land,
if you like.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
And you got to all sorts of different regions. And
one of the pages I turned into in the North
Island book was number sixteen, and that's the Rangatira Golf
Club where you get an unforgettable ride from the eighteenth green.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Oh yeah. Look. So this is one of the amazing
things about golf and New Zealand. There's so much ingenuity
and like a lot of these courses people are, you know,
one hundred years ago they carved them out by hand basically,
you know, with scrub cutters and people lending their tractors.
But Rangaterra went the extra mile. And for people who

(03:46):
don't know it, it's in Hunterville and it's cut into
the side of the sort of a canyon like above
the Rangatiki River, and it's on three terraces. So you
played six holes on top and then you dive down
to another terrace and play six holes, and then you
go down to the bottom. And honestly, if they didn't
have this cable car to bring you back up, you

(04:08):
wouldn't play it like it would just it would be
like climbing Everest to get back up with your golf
bag and everything. And they built that themselves, so it's
this amazing experience. You finish at the eighteenth, you lug
your bag into a car can sit into the Birdie
bomb it's called, and it can hold four people. You
press the button and up you go back to the top.

(04:32):
And anyone who plays golf should go and visit and
enjoy that sort of the real treat you get at
the end of the round.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
And it was interesting that you rated I think the
Belmont Links and Womanui as the North Island's best provincial course.
Why wow.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Look, one of the amazing things about doing this book
is we did a lot of travel, you know, all
around the country. We split it up, did a lot
of the He's based in christ Church, so he did
the South Island ones and I did the North Island ones.
And so I did a trip. I flew into Palmerston
more than hired a car and drove basically from you know,

(05:12):
through the mun O or two region Wanganui up to Taranaki.
Then another trip you know, down to Hamilton and Talipo
from from Hawkland. You know, so got around a fair
bit and sometimes you go to check out places and
you think, yeah, I don't know, how has this got
the right vibe that we're looking for? And I arrived

(05:35):
at Wanganui to Belmont Links and sort of didn't really
know what to expect, but was blown away. Brian By
like just it's quite hard to describe. It's just a
really cool piece of land and kind of engulfing language.
Some funky holes in there and some interesting design and

(05:56):
but it's really well maintained. There's got some great who's
back over, you know, out to the coast in one
direction and back to the city and the other sort
of perched on what we call good golf land, sort
of hard and fast in summer, so that you know,
you get lots of run in the ball or bounce
and yeah, you know, it's where Simon Owen, who is

(06:18):
one of ours, learned to play.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
So, Michael, it's a wonderful, wonderful book and time for
Father's Day. I think if there's any dads out there,
or any women for that matter, that love golf, this
would make an absolutely ideal prison. It's called sweet Spot
thirty six iconic golf courses that celebrate the best of
New Zealand golf. Michael, to you and too, Phielm congratulations.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. Look, and I have to say we've self published this, Brian,
so it's available in some bookstores, but largely we're selling
it through a website that we created. We're doing everything ourselves.
We package them up ourselves and send them out.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
So what's the website.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Oh, the website is sweet Spot golfbook dot com. So
if you google sweet Spot Golf Book you should be
able to find it, no trouble. I think Google. Google's
been friendly to us, so yes, it's.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
A great book. Michael, well done, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Brian, I'm glad you loved it.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Thank you, Michael Donaldson, Sweet Spots, golfbook dot com. It
is superb.