New motorway exits and on-ramps will guide members to the new course at Wainui where double the land offers five tees for players of varying ability, a proposed nine-hole par-three course and plans for several tennis courts and a gym to be linked to the clubhouse complex.
The clay-based chaos and congestion of Peninsula will be "remember when" discussions in the new clubhouse when the course opens about Easter 2016.
When the construction is complete, work will start on the final stages of the development complex with the nine-hole par-three course, driving range and tennis courts.
Moving or amalgamating is a growing trend for clubs in Auckland as they face multiple challenges to their finances, membership and operations. Manukau will shift to a new base at Alfriston and there are efforts to dovetail Middlemore and the Grange.
Fluctuating numbers use the 15 golf courses on the Shore which stretch from the links-style Muriwai in the west to the coastal parkland Gulf Harbour in the east.
Peninsula was battling the crush on facilities, a growing list of repairs and working through the $3.2 million redesign of seven holes when the offer to move to Wainui was submitted.
"In came the Fairy Godmother," Peninsula chairman Patrick Kennelly said.
"It is a worldwide trend apparently in a sense that developers find large tracts of land close to a city centre which they can turn into housing in return for building a golf course.
"The piece of land at Wainui was already consented for a golf course and hamlet when we were approached by the developers and we began a five-year journey to get to where we are now.
"We showed Grant Puddicombe [from the developers] the land, we got an initial design and that was tweaked three or four times."
That shift will take the club about 7km west across the motorway to Wainui, where heavy earthmoving equipment has been on the go all year, shaping the holes from the clay before a network of irrigation systems was laid through the soil, then a 150mm top layer of sand-carpeted fairways.
Those green channels have been seeded with brown top fescue which delivers a very compassionate tread and year-round access for carts. The rough is another fescue grass and the greens are a blend of Arrowtown browntop while there are still discussions about the sand to be used in the 40 bunkers.
A number of greens and tees have already been cut and rolled as they warm to the approaching summer conditions.
Wainui means lots of water and the massive irrigation lake which borders the 8th, 9th and 18th holes is full from this year's rain with the run-off merging into one of the streams which runs through the property.
The second stage of shaping is well under way and construction on the clubhouse is due to begin in the New Year.
Back at Peninsula, work will also begin on the housing projects which will reduce the course to a nine hole challenge with members offered the compensation of tee slots at Gulf Harbour.
About 400 full members will tee off when Wainui begins with a number of other midweek, associate, family and casual categories which will allow use of the gym and tennis courts.
