Golf has been played on the Lansdowne farmland since 1897, and in the years since, Masterton Golf Club has been home to a number of golfers who left a lasting mark on the game in New Zealand — and, in one case, on the world stage.
Where the club’s earliest champions made their mark.
In the club’s earliest years, it was the women who made the greatest mark on the national and international stage. Foremost among them was Eileen Williams — known in the convention of her day as Mrs Guy Williams — who rose to prominence from the 1910s onward and was New Zealand’s leading woman golfer for a number of years.
Through the 1920s and ’30s, as the course underwent its first major changes, the club became home to a growing number of notable players — golfers who represented New Zealand with honour as amateurs and, in one high-profile case, as the professional who won this country’s first Major Championship. These honours span the decades: from Eileen (Mrs Guy) Williams in the early years, through T. H. “Bill” Horton and John Hornabrook in the 1920s and ’30s, and on into the 1950s and beyond with Bob Charles.
Sir Bob Charles
New Zealand's first major champion
No name is more central to the story of Masterton Golf Club than Sir Bob Charles. Born in nearby Carterton in 1936, Bob first swung a club as a boy on Masterton's own Lansdowne fairways, and it was here — walking these same hills, learning these same greens — that the foundations of one of the greatest careers in New Zealand sport were laid.
Charles went on to become the first left-handed golfer ever to win a major championship, claiming the 1963 Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes. After four rounds he was tied with American Phil Rodgers on 277; Charles then won the 36-hole playoff by a commanding eight shots — a piece of golfing history that began, in its earliest form, on our own course.
The club is proud to call him our own, and his achievements remain the standard every golfer at Masterton measures themselves against.
Sources: Wikipedia (Bob Charles); Golf Wellington club history; Masterton Golf Club website; Destination Wairarapa.
No name is more central to the story of Masterton Golf Club than Sir Bob Charles. Born in nearby Carterton in 1936, Bob first swung a club as a boy on Masterton's own Lansdowne fairways. It was here — walking these same hills, learning these same greens — that the foundations of one of the greatest careers in New Zealand sport were quietly laid.
The wider world got its first glimpse of his talent in 1954, when, as an 18-year-old amateur, he won the New Zealand Open. It was an extraordinary result for one so young, and a sign of what was to come. He turned professional in late 1960 and set out to test himself against the best players in the world.
The defining moment arrived in 1963 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. After four rounds of The Open Championship, Charles was tied with the American Phil Rodgers on 277, forcing a 36-hole playoff. He won it by a commanding eight shots — and in doing so became the first left-handed golfer ever to win a major championship. It was a piece of golfing history that had begun, in its earliest form, on our own course.
The Open was the summit, but far from the whole of it. Over a career spanning decades he won five times on the US PGA Tour and around 80 tournaments worldwide, and long after his peak years he returned to the biggest stages to win the Senior British Open twice, in 1989 and again in 1993. His connection to the New Zealand Open never faded either: in 2007, aged 71, he made the cut in the very event he had first won as a teenager — a span of 53 years between the two.
For more than 60 years he stood alone as New Zealand's only Open champion, until Ryan Fox lifted the Claret Jug in 2026. He remains one of only three New Zealanders ever to win a men's major, alongside Michael Campbell and Ryan Fox, and is widely regarded as the country's greatest-ever golfer — one of the finest players never born in the United States or Britain, and New Zealand's foremost golfing ambassador for the best part of five decades.
The club is proud to call him our own, and his achievements remain the standard every golfer at Masterton measures themselves against.
The club's most outstanding product and current Patron. He learned his golf — and his celebrated putting — at Lansdowne, winning the 1954 New Zealand Open as an 18-year-old amateur and the 1963 Open Championship. He has continued to support golf in the Wairarapa and lends his name to the club's left-handers' tournament.
Eileen Hope Williams (Mrs Guy Williams)
Trailblazer of New Zealand women's golf
Eileen "Mrs Guy" Williams was the club's first star, and an inspiration to women and men alike. Born Eileen Hope Lewis in Rotorua in 1884, she learned golf as a child and was already club champion at Auckland Ladies' Golf Club by her teens. At just 19 she won the first of her national match-play titles, going on to take the New Zealand Amateur Match Championship six times between 1904 and 1922. In 1905 she married Wairarapa sheep farmer Guy Coldham Williams and moved to Te Parae station, but her golf only flourished — she was the inaugural winner of the Mellsop Cup Stroke Championship in 1911 and claimed it a further six times through to 1925.
Her reach extended well beyond New Zealand. She won the Australian Women's Championship in 1920 and reached the semi-finals of championship events in both Britain and France, and back home added New Zealand Championship Foursomes titles in 1930 and 1933. Just as important was her work off the course: she helped establish the New Zealand Ladies' Golf Union in 1911, was central to its early growth, and in 1933 managed the New Zealand team that won the first Tasman Cup match against Australia. Having spent her later playing years at Royal Wellington, she and Guy settled in Masterton by 1941, where she remained a prominent and active figure in the club's affairs until her death in 1958.
John Hornabrook
The amateur who beat the professionals
John Hornabrook was the club's most prominent player of the 1930s and one of its great characters.
New Zealand Amateur Champion during that decade, he achieved the rare feat of winning the New Zealand Open outright as an amateur — a title usually dominated by the professionals. He first claimed it with a near-perfect final round of 71, then won the 18-hole play-off with a 73 over Ernie Moss (75) and Andrew Shaw (76), and went on to take the Open a second time in 1939.
Famously, he turned down the chance to train in the United States under Gene Sarazen, only because he could not raise the £2,000 fare.
Closer to home, he was equally commanding on his own course, winning the Wairarapa Open a record eight times — a mark that still stands today.
T. H. "Bill" Horton
Mentor to a generation of champions
T H (Bill) Horton was the finest iron player of his day and a defining figure in the club's early history. He mentored both John Hornabrook and, later, Bob Charles, passing the game down through two of New Zealand's finest amateurs.
Horton was twice New Zealand Amateur Champion, in 1925 and 1928, while Hornabrook would go on to take the same title three times, in 1935, 1936 and 1938.
His dominance at home was remarkable. Horton won the very first Wairarapa Open in 1926, and through the 1920s, '30s and '40s he and John Hornabrook traded the title back and forth almost without interruption — winning it fourteen times between them in barely two decades. Hornabrook took eight of those titles and Horton six. Between them the pair were the outstanding golfers of their era at Masterton, their names filling the honours board year after year.
Masterton professionals carrying the club’s name onto tours around the world today
Harry Bateman
Masterton’s Tour regular — and a speedgolf world record holder
Born in Masterton, Harry Bateman turned professional in 2011 and has been a fixture on the PGA Tour of Australasia ever since, recording top-five finishes at both the New Zealand PGA Championship and the Queensland Open. His best Tier One result came at the 2019 New Zealand Open, where he led early in the week before finishing 8th.
● Won the Mondiale Order of Merit for 2017 after five wins and three runner-up finishes on the domestic circuit that year, capped by victory at the Mount Maunganui Pro-Am.
● Also a top-10 ranked New Zealand speedgolfer — a discipline combining golf and running. In a round that opened at Masterton Golf Club's own Lansdowne course before finishing at Carterton, Bateman set an official speedgolf world record with a combined score of 218.34 over two days.
● Regularly competes on the Summerset Charles Tour, New Zealand's domestic professional circuit, while based in the Wairarapa.
Sources: NZ Open player profile; Golf Australia Magazine; NZ Herald; Wairarapa Times-Age.
Ben Campbell
From Masterton amateur to LIV Golf and The Open
Born in Masterton on 20 August 1991, Ben Campbell is one of the most successful golfers to come out of the club in the modern era. As an amateur he reached as high as world No. 6 on the World Amateur Golf Ranking, won the 2010 Carrus Tauranga Open ahead of Michael Hendry and Ryan Fox, and was runner-up at the Australian Amateur Championship in both 2010 and 2011.
● Turned professional in late 2012 and built his career on the PGA Tour of Australasia before earning his Asian Tour card in 2018.
● Won the 2018 New Zealand PGA Championship at Manawatu, and later added two Asian Tour titles: the 2023 Hong Kong Open (birdying the last two holes to beat Cameron Smith by one shot) and the 2024 International Series Morocco (won in a sudden-death playoff).
● Qualified for the 2022 Open Championship at St Andrews via a runner-up finish at the Vic Open.
● Joined LIV Golf's RangeGoats GC for the 2025 season alongside Bubba Watson, Peter Uihlein and Matthew Wolff, and finished 3rd at LIV Golf Singapore in 2025, earning US$1.5 million.
Campbell's path hasn't been easy — a mystery chest illness and serious hip and back injuries stalled his early professional career and dropped him outside the world's top 1000 before a comeback built him back into one of New Zealand's most prominent touring professionals.
Sources: Wikipedia (Ben Campbell); NZ Open player profile; Golf Monthly; Grokipedia; NZ Golf Magazine.
Kerry Mountcastle
From Masterton electrician to Charles Tour champion
Kerry Mountcastle grew up playing out of Masterton and built a strong amateur record before turning professional in 2021, memorably making his pro debut at Paraparaumu Beach — the same course where he'd won the New Zealand Stroke Play Championship as an amateur in 2018.
● Won the 2020 Carrus Tauranga Open as a 23-year-old amateur, fighting off a strong field including Mark Brown and Lachie McDonald.
● Has won the Charles Tour's NZ Super 6s title twice — first at Manawatu in 2021, and again in 2023 — and added a third Super 6 title at the Gippsland Super 6 in Victoria, Australia, in November 2023, his first win across the Tasman.
● Continued his rise through the 2024/25 season on the PGA Tour of Australasia, finishing 19th on the Order of Merit with a tied-2nd at the New Zealand PGA Championship and a tied-3rd at the Vic Open.
● Made his DP World Tour debut at the 2025 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland, making the cut and finishing tied 32nd in a world-class field.
Mountcastle worked as an electrician while building his amateur and early professional career, only fully committing to the tour after his early Charles Tour success — a detail that may resonate well on a club history page celebrating home-grown, grassroots talent.
Sources: NZ Open player profile; NZ Golf Magazine; NZ Herald; Golf Australia Magazine; HighCut Golf NZ.