Rich in history and an icon of New Zealand golf, the Royal Wellington Golf Club has hosted 7 NZ Open Championships since 1912 and in 2004 it became the first golf club in the country to receive royal status. Royal Wellington has recently undergone a significant redevelopment resulting in a challenging new championship course. Set in a beautiful parkland layout, dominant native trees and bush, the gentle contoured fairways are laced together by streams and lakes, with rare native podocarp river plain forest is a backdrop to many of the holes.

The course contains many distinctive holes, including the signature par-5 4th, which sees the fairway split on either side of a stream off the Hutt River. Over the stream, and past a strategically placed bunker, the fairway cambers towards a lake and narrows dramatically as it gets closer to the green. The sloping wide but narrow green sits behind the lake, nearly at right angles to the line of play, making hitting the green with a long approach a tricky proposition.