NAPIER, New Zealand—The Tiger Tour, golf’s most intriguing and expensive itinerary, will return for 2013 with an upgrade: private jet service between venues all across New Zealand’s North and South islands.
Incorporating the best of New Zealand’s many attractions—including two of the top-rated golf courses in the world—the Tiger Tour features nine nights at three award-winning lodges and access to dozens of out-of-this-world destination options, including the famous glaciers of Milford Sound.
The Tiger Tour is the vision of Julian H. Robertson, Jr., the American hedge-fund legend whose immensely successful Tiger Fund inspired the Tour’s name. Robertson’s 30-year love affair with New Zealand inspired him to develop the three luxury lodges and two world-class golf courses that form the Tiger Tour’s core. To all of this, The Tiger Tour adds an extra-special component: the unique, disarming charm of its Kiwi hosts.
“The Tiger Tour is really Mr. Robertson’s invitation to see and experience this country as he sees it, and discover as he has the immense charm of New Zealand’s landscape and people,” said Ryan Brandeburg, director of golf at Kauri Cliffs GC in Bay of Islands, NZ, and its sister course, Cape Kidnappers GC here in Napier.
“Mr. Robertson is a golfer, and he has experienced first hand the advantages and practicalities of traveling about the country by private jet. Accordingly, for 2013, we’re offering two separate Tiger Tour itineraries, one with flights provided by Air New Zealand, and another where guests travel by private jet and EC-130 helicopter.”
The Tiger Tour by private jet, limited to a maximum of four couples, kicks off in Napier at The Farm at Cape Kidnappers on 11 March 2013. From there the Tour moves south to the alpine lake village of Queenstown, where guests stay at Matakauri Lodge, before proceeding to the subtropical far north and The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs. Pricing for this itinerary is NZ$24,900 per person (+15% NZ goods & services tax).
The Tiger Tour conducted via commercial airline begins at Matakauri Lodge on 15 April 2013, before moving to Cape Kidnappers and concluding at Kauri Cliffs. The price tag for this option is NZ$13,900 per person (+tax) and space is limited to eight couples.
Both itineraries are inclusive of all meals, green fees and ground transport between lodges, airports and excursions. It also includes air transport between the three lodges, though guests are responsible for delivering themselves to the initial property at the start of each tour. “This is the same way we ran the Tiger Tour in 2012,” said Brandeburg, “as we found it provides a lot more flexibility for people who want to add nights or other destinations within New Zealand and Australia.”
For more information and to request a detailed itinerary for both tours, contact the Lodge Reservations Team at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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. Further details can also be had at any of the three resort websites: http://www.capekidnappers.com, http://www.kauricliffs.com, and http://www.matakaurilodge.com
Robertson started Tiger Management Corp., also known as The Tiger Fund, in 1980, with US$8 million in capital. By 1998, its holdings had climbed to $22 billion. After closing his Tiger Fund in 2000, Robertson started to use his own capital, experience, and infrastructure to support and finance (to “seed”) select up-and-coming hedge fund managers. By September 2009, Robertson has helped launching 38 hedge funds (“Tiger Seeds”) in return for a stake in their fund management companies. Apart from those Tiger Seeds, a considerable number of analysts and managers Robertson employed and mentored at Tiger Management went out on their own and continue to operate some of the best-known hedge-fund firms, known as “Tiger Cubs”.
The Robertson family first ventured to New Zealand in 1978. The development of Kauri Cliffs, near the northern the tip of New Zealand’s North Island, came to fruition at the turn of the century. The golf club debuted in 2000, followed closely by The Lodge. The Tom Doak-designed Cape Kidnappers GC opened outside Napier in 2004, followed by The Farm at Cape Kidnappers a year later. Matakauri Lodge debuted in the South Island resort Mecca of Queenstown in 2010.
While Tiger Tour 2013 provides an opportunity to experience some of the most unique, contrasting, untouched scenery on Earth—from private pink-sand beaches and spectacular volcanoes, to lakes, mountains and monolithic glaciers—the stars of the Tiger Tour are undoubtedly the five Robertson-developed properties that serve as hosts.
In its 2012 ranking of all golf courses located outside the United States, Golf Digest U.S.—the definitive source of world course rankings since it pioneered the practice in 1966—placed both Cape Kidnappers GC (#6), and sister club, Kauri Cliffs GC (#19), in its prestigious Top 100. The ultra-scenic Jack’s Point Golf Club represents the golfing option for Tiger Tour guests in Queenstown.
The accommodations on the Tiger Tour are no less feted. Indeed, they have all three proved to be darlings of the international travel press:
* The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs, a veranda-wrapped plantation house with adjoining guest cottages, was named the 6th best hotel in the world, according to the 2011 Condé Nast Traveller readers’ poll, and this year received a first-ever perfect score for service, as part of Travel+Leisure magazine’s annual World’s Best Awards.
* In 2010, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers was named to Travel+Leisure’s “World’s Top 50 Hotels”. It also earned Gold List status from Condé Nast Traveller for 2012.
* Located in the heart of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. Matakauri would, within a year of its grand opening, earn a place on Condé Nast Traveller’s “2011 Hot List”, while simultaneously making a comprehensive N.Z. golf tour feasible.
“We’re certainly persuaded that no golf tour can top the Tiger Tour in terms of golf course and accommodation quality, but the Tiger Tour is frankly far more than a golf tour,” Brandeburg said. “There are just so many incredible activities included in these two itineraries: vineyard visits, horseback riding, ocean sailing, jet-boating trips down the Dart River, and heli-tours of Milford Sound and Hokianga Harbour at the very northern tip of New Zealand.
“Dining in all three lodges is a true gourmet experience. Merely exploring the properties at Cape Kidnappers and Kauri Cliffs, each some 2500 hectares in size, is something special. Where else would one be able to track and observe rare Kiwi birds in a natural habitat?
“We feel the Tiger Tour for 2013 is the quintessential New Zealand experience—the opportunity to best experience this country, in boutique luxury, while mingling with real Kiwis, human and otherwise.”
