Wealthy New Zealand town's golf course goes under

Featherston might be the second most lucrative property destination in New Zealand but it's golf community has just been dealt a significant blow.

The 116-year-old Featherston Golf Club is winding up and its 18-hole course is being sold, much to the disappointment of some stalwart members.

With a course once described by prominent golfing author Tom Hyde as New Zealand's flattest (Not sure that's a postive – Ed), the Featherston club has been in steady decline.  

Club captain Charlie Fairbrother said the writing had been on the wall for several years and they just hadn't found a way to make it sustainable. 

Charlie. Gutted.

"There's sadness and it has been a reluctant decision but people can see that it just can't carry on," he said.

"For the last 20 years it has been coming. As long as I have known, it has struggled financially."

They tried going without a paid greenkeeper for three years with all the work being done by volunteers, but as the grounds deteriorated so did member numbers.

Now with fewer than 70 paid-up members they voted at a special general meeting recently to close the club and sell the land.

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"It's not just a loss for golfers, it's a community asset that will be disappearing," Fairbrother said.

The club was established on Gum Grove farm nearby in 1902 and moved to its present location in the 1970s in a deal organised by Guy Brandon.

Let's hope they can get some golf somewhere else soon...

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