A punter tries his luck on the Westland floating golf course. Photo / Hokitika Guardian
A punter tries his luck on the Westland floating golf course. Photo / Hokitika Guardian
A Hari Hari woman has branched into tourism with a "floating golf" challenge at the man-made Ross Lake, in the historic Westland gold town.
Jill Waterman toyed with the idea for a few years after noticing floating golf balls available online through Amazon.
Last year she decided to bitethe bullet, starting with sourcing a floating platform and applying for consents and approvals.
"There's a lot of scenery around but not a lot of stuff to do in between. I want to encourage people into stopping and staying," Waterman said.
Her Floating Golf Challenge has a number of prizes for those who can reach the platform - anchored 100m from shore - and a special prize for a hole-in-one.
The main prize is $2000 cash or a one-ounce .9999% pure gold ingot mined in Ross.
"It looks awesome."
She and her husband set up the challenge for a trial at the weekend and got a local stag party to try it out for the first time.
The challenge officially opened today at 9am.
The green with red flag is a standard golf hole, while the second green with the yellow flag is a sand hole a bit over 30cm square.
Landing a ball on it will win a glacier flight.
Waterman said the golf balls float so on a fine day you can see where they land on the lake.
She hopes the challenge will be a fun activity for the school holidays, as well as appealing to tourists.
