Otumoetai Golf Club will celebrate its 50th Jubilee in 2014.
In the late 1950s the Tauranga Borough Council converted what was then a town supply dairy farm into a reserve area called Bureta Park.
The council's plans included creating a simple area for the general public, however, local residents had another idea and in 1964 the Otumoetai Golf Club was formed with 25 financial members. For the first five years the council maintained the park with the club taking over allresponsibilities in 1969 when a lease was granted by the council and a greenkeeper employed.
Founder members inherited a piece of swamp on which rough grass thinly covered what had been a shallow estuary. Golfers learned to drive the ball long and low as a high shot would be plugged in the sticky mud. All a far cry from the beautifully manicured fairways and greens of today's course.
Progress since those early times has included intensive drainage and with council's recent input following the 2005 floods throughout Tauranga, the land has been transformed from being part of an original town supply dairy farm and swampy area into what is now a well- maintained nine-hole golf course.
