Golf: Veteran closes family chapter

MEMORY LANE: Retiring Kim Southerden with a 1930s hickory-shafted driver under an 1870s tree at Napier GC. PHOTO/Duncan Brown

REMEMBER the days when players at the Napier Golf Club hit across Links Road to one of the greens?

This was allowed up until the late 1960s, recalled Kim Southerden who retires as the club professional tomorrow. When he shuts the pro shop door for the final time it will signal the end of a 65-year involvement at the club for his family as his late father, Ernie, was the club pro before him.

"I can remember when it was all jackets and ties up in the clubrooms. These days it is far more relaxed and more social. Back then it was a gentlemen's-type club and players addressed each other by their surnames ... I was 15 and some of them said I could call them Mr and whatever their last name was. It got a bit awkward because I couldn't remember who wanted to be called by what," Southerden, 61, recalled.

Bad arthritis and looming neck surgery forced Southerden to call it quits earlier than expected.

"I've had arthritis since I was 30 and it hasn't been the best for the past year.

"Hopefully once I've recovered from surgery, I'll have more time to play," said Southerden, who will remain in the Bay and a member of the Napier club.

The three handicapper who has played only six to eight rounds a year recently is one of three members of his immediate family to have won club championships on the Waiohiki course. His wife, Julianne, and daughter, Lauree, are the others.

"Brett [Southerden's son] who plays off a plus 1 handicap at the Kwinana club in Perth won the strokeplay and matchplay titles at his club ... he thinks he's now eligible to be in our club," Southerden quipped.

A former HBPB rep, Lauree, no longer has time for playing golf as she is completing her nursing degree. However, she keeps in touch with the game by working in the pro shop at the Boulcott's Farm Heritage Golf Club in Wellington.

The former -1 handicapper, who has been the Napier club pro for 39 years, played for Hawke's Bay from 1971 until 1976 after making his debut as a 17-year-old.

"I was 15 when I had my first trial. Those were the days when anyone on a five handicap or less got a letter inviting them to trial. Those were the days when juniors were tolerated but not encouraged," Southerden recalled.

He produced four wins playing as the No4 in the Bay team which finished seventh in the Waiohiki-hosted Freyberg nationals in 1972. Five consecutive wins was his best record at Freyberg level.

That was on the Russley course in Christchurch and the Bay's best finish during his stint was second at Denby, Whangarei, in 1973. His best round on the Waiohiki course was a 65 in the early 1970s.

The former New Zealand junior representative ranked "The Emperor", the late Stuart Jones, a former New Zealand and Hawke's Bay rep, as his toughest opponent.

Southerden beat Jones at the 19th in a Hawke's Bay Match Play tournament final at Waiohiki and that feat earned him his first taste of Hawke's Bay selection.

Southerden's replacement, Andrew Henare, who recently returned to the Bay after working in the mining industry in Australia, starts at the club on Monday. Southerden will spend a month helping him settle in. He believed Henare couldn't have chosen a better club.

"The facilities are great these days and the course is a lot easier to play than it was in the old days. With more than 600 members, it is still a buoyant club," Southerden added.