Runway To Fairway (How an airport grabbed 1/2 a golf course, how the club reacted and whats the long game)

By Mary Scott Belleridge “You can’t beat Wellington on a good day” and, according to recent climate data gathered by James Mulrennan, that’s apparently 26 days a year. For anyone who’s ever landed at Wellington airport on the remaining 339 days, you’ll know it can be a thrilling, white-knuckle ride requiring full use of both pilot skills and barf bags. An aerial approach into the capital has it all: waves, bays, coastal coves, mountains and hills (on the side of which teeter houses with a tenacious Wellington spirit of determination). It’s no wonder pilots who stick the landing at Wellington airport are applauded. Pilots have to land on a taco, with the sides up, surrounded by water. And that’s just the topography. Then add bird strike from the neighbouring tip, lack of visibility, and wind. The isthmus that is Rongotai really has everything. Except flat land. It’s little wonder that Wellington International Airport Limited (WIAL) has looked to expand its backyard over the years. With Evans Bay to the north, Lyall Bay to the south, high-terrain and housing to the east and west, and a shopping district on its doorstep, there’s only so much existing land to expand on, and only so much encroaching over ocean an airport can afford. Yet geographical and aeronautical challenges aren’t the only complications for the expansion of the award-winning airport with its own dragon. WIAL has faced fiery opposition to its plans to spread east across the Miramar Links golf greens. The airport team appear to be open with their proposal. Anyone can view their 2040 “blueprint for the future” on their website. The voices opposed to that blueprint include those with environmental concerns (like carbon footprints and climate change); social concerns (like noise levels for those living in neighbouring suburbs); and golfing concerns (the Miramar Links Golf Club would lose half its land and reduce from 18-holes to nine). A settlement on the appeal of the expansion has been agreed upon between the airport and locals (including the Guardians of the Bays, and the Strathmore Residents Association). Since locals can’t comment fully on current proceedings (though these are drawing to a close) we’ll talk through social and environmental concerns in the next update. We’ll also get the latest from team airport. In the meantime, since the airport has already bought titles to the Miramar Links land, this update will look at the loss of fairways first, and talk golf, Gandalf, and the growing number of “women picking up clubs”. The golf club is positioned immediately to the east of the existing airport as a buffer of green between WIAL and neighbouring Strathmore homes. The majority of Miramar’s golf membership agreed to sell the back nine of their course to the airport for $31 million in 2019 ($10 million up-front and $21 million plus inflation later). A number of members voted against the sale, and a smaller contingent was opposed to change of any kind. Anyone who’s ever been on a committee knows it’s near impossible to get full consensus on any decision for any club. Even a call of “all those in favour of keeping the toilets topped up with soap” will meet pockets of resistance. Why? Opinions (like people) are complex, incomparable, and sometimes, incompatible. Even though not all members on the greens agreed, majority rules, and the sale of half the Links’ land to the airport went ahead, so that ship has sailed, and that birdie has flown. Yet it wasn’t the first time the local greens have shrunk in order to grow airport asphalt. An absolutely positively Wellington history of the Miramar Links golf course versus their neighbouring airport could start as far back as 1929 when the new Rongotai aerodrome (not yet an airport) first erected a fence over three greens in preparation for its grand opening.That “incensed” golfers who sought Wellington City Council’s help to get their greens back. Surprise twist: the council, who controlled the aerodrome, instead decided two of the three holes should become part of the airport. Newspapers reported how players “suffered” since their Miramar course was “considered to be one of the principal golfing areas in the Dominion.” The local Links lost ground again in 1954 when 5.25 hectares were taken in preparation for the official opening of the new airport on 24 October, 1959. They weren’t the only locals affected by that drive. Dozens of Wellington houses did a Birnam Wood, upped sticks, and had to relocate themselves down the road (between 80 and 160 homes, depending on which report you read). Rongotai Terrance disappeared off the map. Bulldozers brought down whole hillsides. Three million cubic metres of rock and soil were sent on their way. Half a hill was pushed north into Evans Bay while the other half was shoved south into Lyall Bay. The airport spent a staggering five million pounds (in 1950s currency) in preparation for their new and improved home makeover. The twin-airports model using both Rongotai and Paraparaumu was out: it was Wellington all the way and engines at full throttle.

Fast-forward seventeen years. In 1971, golf club grass was grabbed again. This time 8.2 hectares. Under the Public Works Act, if land was needed for an airport, the airport could buy whatever it had its eye on. And its eye was fixed firmly on the golf course once again. In 1992 the airport wanted another significant slice of the greens that would make an 18-hole course impossible, and reduce the playing space to 9-holes (much like plans for today). Yet, with local golfers opposed to the expansion, and community support standing with golfers on the greens, the airport changed its plans. The airport could live with less, and golfers would be fine with a little redesign. And so, after 100 years of golf on the Miramar greens, in August 1995, 18 rejigged holes along the new boundary line were ready for play. The local Links welcomed golfers from around the globe and started a historic new chapter of their history. Yet, a shrinking golf course wasn’t the only result of exchanges between runway and fairway. Golf balls gone rove, known as “ball escape”, have gifted the airport with more than a few mini-moons that strayed off their intended orbits over the years. At the same time, the occasional light aircraft has strayed from its flight path and careened into the greens. As early as November 1932, a ZK-AAJ reportedly stalled and spun down onto a mound at the 16^th tee. Though the plane was “completely wrecked”, both pilot and passenger miraculously walked away with only slight injuries. In December 1937 a Moth aeroplane headed for Palmerston North didn’t reach 200 feet after its Rongotai take-off before it dived into a fairway mound. Again the pilot walked away. Some say he was lucky. He didn’t have to go to Palmerston North.

Wellingtonians jest, but in truth, Palmy has many fine qualities, like that national treasure Centrepoint Theatre, a space that proudly supports New Zealand playwrights, performing artists, and local practitioners. “Supporting local” is how the Miramar Golf Club could have been described in its early years.

Like Trentham, the Miramar greens were used by the NZ Expeditionary Force to train soldiers in 1914.  In the 1940s, the golf greens were a link between club and community, where time on the course was given to returned soldiers as the Returned Servicemen Associations (RSAs) ran annual events. One serviceman wrote in to Wellington’s Evening Post stating, “I am writing as a returned soldier – a non-golfer, who wishes now to express the gratitude of diggers to the Miramar Club, which every year gives up the use of its links to the R.S.A for the yearly soldiers’ competition.”For years, the greens provided restful views and recreational opportunities for their wider community. If you’re wondering what the club has done for locals lately… there’s room for improvement. The Miramar Links Golf Club isn’t exactly alone in becoming more “exclusive”. While many trace modern golf back to 15^th Century Scots hitting pebbles over sandy tracks near Edinburgh, the “gentlemen’s game” undeniably became synonymous with wealth and exclusivity. Netflix is currently streaming a documentary series called Full Swing centred on the men’s USA PGA Tour. They make bank. A PGA winner can take home $2 million plus in US dollars after four days of play. $1.2 million goes to the runner-up. The leather medal holder takes home $576 000 USD at number four. Number 10 takes $297 000. Even the 66th-placed competitor pockets $20 400 in US dollars. In which sport in New Zealand can you place 66^th and still take home over $32 000 New Zealand dollars? Even the third-place winner of the Elite Category in Wellington’s Round the Bays is down to Under Armour vouchers and a certificate. Though British heroines deserved more than a certificate for their monumental and heroic contributions to WWII, “ladies” were still denied entry to elite English golf courses after the war. The Royal Liverpool’s Club Secretary allegedly stated in 1946 that, “No woman ever has entered the clubhouse and, praise God, no woman ever will.” Gentlemen bemoaned that “women talk too much, they play too slowly” and “they can barely hit the ball out of their own shadows.” One might ask how golfers in impractical dresses were ever to improve their game if never permitted to play… but when’s logic got in the way of an Englishman’s clearly factual opinions? It took almost 273 years before “The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers” finally permitted women to become members of their exclusive group. That may seem ironic, given how folklore credits Mary Queen of Scots as one of the first women to play golf, the first to introduce golf to France (where she studied), and the first to commission a golf course (the St. Andrews Links in Scotland, regarded as the “Home of Golf”). Mary QofS was also famed for coining the golf term “caddy” in 1552 to describe the young French “cadets” in her employment whom she charged with carrying her clubs around the course. 400 years later, and elite clubhouses across Europe continued to erect signs that read “gentlemen only, ladies forbidden.” If blatant discrimination has you reaching for an Air New Zealand sick bag, it’s worth remembering that the Miramar Links “welcomes women” and has done so with open arms (and open purses) since the outset. “Ladies Golf” thrived at Miramar while their counterparts abroad were still prohibited.

“Womens Golf at Miramar” during a women’s tournament. Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 87, 10 October 1934, Page 17. According to the club’s General Manager (Doug Pollock) and Chair of the Board (Evan Bayly), the current Miramar Links Golf Club is always looking at opportunities to “grow women’s golf” and provide a space that works for all busy, contemporary, time-poor players. They’re also looking at ways of returning to their roots as Doug Pollock mentions hopes of linking up more with locals and providing a space for “non-playing members”, as well as those who’re in it for love of the game. When asked about that current membership, and how the breakdown looked in terms of ethnic diversity, that information has never been asked of members (for privacy reasons apparently). What is known is that the majority of players are now in the sprightly category of those aged 35 – 50s, with a number of younger adults, school-aged children, and increasing numbers of women “picking up clubs” and giving golf a go. Non-binary options weren’t factored into the early gendered forms. So, as with trying to relay results from the PGA tours, it’s hard not to prescribe players into traditionally siloed categories of “men” and “women”, or (more often) “men” and “ladies”. The Miramar Links Golf Club proudly lays claim to nearly 120 years of history at Miramar. They hosted the New Zealand Masters, and the international Kirk-Windeyer Cup with Australia. Golfing legends like Bob Charles played there. John Key’s played there. An increasing number of younger sports enthusiasts are giving the greens a go.  So what does the future hold for a forward-looking Miramar whose link to the past is a footprint that’s just been cut in half, again? Better with Wētā  Rumours have been confirmed that one of the club’s many possibilities (after an airport payday) could involve a collaboration with Sir Richard Taylor of Wētā Workshop.  While the Club are currently weighing up their options, seeking costings, and looking at feasibility, at least one of those paths could lead to an unexpected journey with some of the most creative and capable artists in the country. There’s a Bucket Fountain full of possibilities. Golf courses the world has, but what they don’t, is a Wētā Workshopped golf experience. Tourists could fly into Rongotai, head past Gollum, Gandalf, and Smaug, then hop a fence and take their eagles to the first leg of a new expanded Wētā tour. A Wētā Workshop spokesperson told us that as, “part of the golf club’s early exploration of future options for the course, Wētā Workshop created some concept design – unrelated to any film IP – in response to the golf club’s brief.”  Even if there’s no direct connect to a film, if anyone could turn the loss of half a golf course into a global draw card, it’s Sir Richard Taylor and his astonishingly admirable creatives. On the other hand, should we encourage more tourists to fly into Wellington, and look to double passenger numbers by 2040 like the airport predicts, considering the carbon cost of flying? We’ll look at the latest with local residents in the next update, and share their concerns for the environment and neighbouring suburbs if the airport expansion moves east across the golf greens. We’ll also check in on all the latest with the airport team, and keep you in the loop. In the meantime, this is your Wellington.  If you have thoughts on the plan to expand, the world of bunkers and bogies, or anything that relates to this capital city, we’d love to hear your thoughts. This is Wellington – LIVE. By Mar