Golfing Hawke's Bay teens take full day out for 72 holes of charity

With a few minutes' break it's off-again for teenagers (from left) Jake Christian-Goss, Seb Kettle, Harry Cooper and Jack Ryan for the second half of their 72 holes golf challenge. Photo / Doug Laing

Four teenaged Napier golfers found a noble variation to their university-break days on the fairways and greens by playing 72 holes each in one day for charity at the Napier Golf Club's Waiohiki course on Thursday.

The 19-year-old students – Jake Christian-Goss, Seb Kettle, Harry Cooper and Jack Ryan - started about 6am and finished 14 hours later, an endurance best indicated in Christian-Goss' reference to golf the next afternoon. "No, not today," he said.

Lining up in the Bunch of Battlers nationwide Longest Day Golf Challenge - you pick your day any time from December 22 to the end of January - their tally on by mid-afternoon Friday was just over $3000 of a nationwide total nearing $600,000 for the Cancer Society.

Of course it wasn't just the 72 holes (four rounds of 18). They used the carts for the first round and then walked the rest, at least 19km, depending how the ball flies.

Christian-Goss said the big day out was a response to learning of friends with cancer, including the pre-Christmas diagnosis of 20-year-old Hunter Donghi.

While the numbers on the course weren't as important as those in the bank, Victoria University student Kettle was clearly the man to beat, a plus-1 handicapper who hit a 66 on the course last year and who had carded two 1-under rounds of 71 after 36 holes of the latest exercise.

The other three are much newer to the game, Victoria University and former St John's College Hastings student Ryan now off a 16 handicap, and Otago University students Christian-Goss (ex-Napier BHS) and Cooper (ex-Hastings BHS) of 17 and 23 respectively.

They brought some competition to the day, Kettle, winning the first round, with Christian-Goss next, and the last, Cooper the runner-up.

The three newer golfers played the other two as a "three-man scramble" - carding the best shots among them on each hole to beat Kettle on the second round, and force a tie on the third.

Midway through the third round, Christian-Goss noted to a reporter at the time: "It's going really good, we love what we're and it's good to be doing something for the community."