- Update 10.15am – story clarified to say under the Public Works Act, land might be offered back to Riverside Golf Club.
The asbestos-ridden former Narrows Golf Club pavilion is gone and the future of the club’s 36.6ha of fertile land running alongside the Waikato River in Tamahere will be decided soon.
A full house in the Narrows 19th for the closing day tournament three years ago. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Golfers have long since left the club heading across the river in 2022 to the newly developed Tīeke Golf Estate built with the $20 million New Zealand Transport Agency paid for the Narrows course to be part of the Southern Links, now a road of national significance.
When club officials shut the clubhouse doors for the last time, and turned over the keys to NZTA, the pavilion became something of a beacon for vagrants and vandals.
Andrew Corkill
Regional Relationships director Andrew Corkill said the club house was always getting broken into and vandalised and then became a fire risk.
Demolition started in November and was finished a month later. The contractor removed all items from the site to a waste facility.
Approximately 250 square metres of non-friable asbestos was removed from the building.
“The asbestos was located around the exterior cladding, decking and soffits and internally on the ground floor of the building,” he said.
While the land is not for sale on the open market, sources told The News there was plenty of interest from developers.
Aerial view of the old Narrows Golf Course looking south in 2010 with the now demolished club house centre front.
The land is zoned rural and part of the Waikato District Council. Its capital value is $5.050 million according to council records and rates on it are $11,753 a year.
Corkill said NZTA would need to first determine if the land was needed for any other public works.
Under the Public Works Act, it would have to be offered back to Riverside Golf – the club formed through a merger of Narrows and Lochiel Golf Club – which sold the course.
Investigations are underway as to whether it should be offered to Māori under a Treaty of Waitangi settlement, or the Crown might decide to hold the land for future settlement.
A tin shed shelter provided accommodation for golfers seen at an early prizegiving with a stray chihuahua along for the ceremony. Photo: Hamilton City Libraries.
A prizegiving at Narrows Golf Club
The first ‘proper’ clubhouse opened in 1938. Photo: Narrows files.
The last option would be to sell it on the open market.
The government announced last year it would fast track Southern Links into a road of national significance saying it would support economic growth by helping to unlock new housing and business areas and provide key links for freight.
The club itself was founded in 1935 when Tamahere farmers established a course on a 20ha sheep paddock on the right bank of the Waikato River adjoining the Narrows Crossing.
Over the years many visiting golfers thought the Narrows name came from the tree-lined narrow fairways rather than the narrowest point of the river.
Four golfers head out for a round of golf with Narrows Golf Club house in the background. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
They put a small tin shed shelter on the land and officially opened it and the course on June 1, 1935. Members built a clubhouse using voluntary labour three years later.
That lasted into the 1960s when members had purchased enough land to make an 18-hole course.
In 1970 construction began on a two-storey club house, the one which was demolished recently and the par 72 course of 5913m of free draining, easy walking river terrace land finalised.
Members added to the clubhouse in the early 2000s when Transit NZ (now NZTA) said they would not need any land for a motorway. The threat had been hanging over the club’s heads for years.
But the development of Hamilton into the south and the need to plan for further economic growth saw them change their mind and apply for a designation in 2014 which was granted two years later.
A team at the Narrows farewell tournament l-r Mary Anne, James and David Gill, Phillip Conaghan, Bill Wine and Ross McDonald.
Professional golfer David Smail, who played the course regularly as a teenager, celebrates a hole in one on the par three 18th at Narrows in 2008. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
Golfers tee off on the par three 1st with the Narrows Golf Club pavillion behind them. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
