Michael Campbell has flown the flag for New Zealand and Māori for decades. Photo / Sportsbeat Images
Michael Campbell has flown the flag for New Zealand and Māori for decades. Photo / Sportsbeat Images
Attracting more Māori golfers is a key focus for Golf New Zealand’s two newest employees.
Aroha Tito and Watene Hema have joined the NZ Golf as Māori golf development managers for the North Island and South Island respectively.
The duo will develop and support regional and national Māori participation initiatives aimed at promoting golf as a sport and recreational pastime to iwi, hapū, hapori, and kura, that contributes to the wellbeing of Māori.
Tito has played competitive golf for the Northland, North Harbour and Bay of Plenty interprovincial teams, as well as playing in Australia, Thailand and North America.
With a memberships at Kaikohe Golf Club in Northland, and Omanu Golf Club in Tauranga, Tito spent nine years coaching junior golfers under the auspices of the Ngāki Tamariki Trust based at the Chamberlain Park Golf Club in Auckland. She has been tournament director for the Māori Golf Association’s annual tournament for the past 20 years and a previous board member with Bay of Plenty Golf.
Hema has worked as recreational advisor with Christchurch City Council, and wellbeing partnerships lead with Sport Waikato. Hema will be based out Christchurch, while Tito will operate of Tauranga.
Watene Hema. Photo / Supplied
Māori have been linked to golf since the sport was first introduced to New Zealand in the 1870s. Māori involvement within the sport has formerly been administered since 1932 by volunteers working within the New Zealand Māori Golf Association. Previous New Zealand Māori Golf Association champions include Kiwi greats such as Michael Campbell and Phil Tataurangi.
Golf New Zealand chief executive Dean Murphy said the appointment of Hema and Tito in business development and participation expansion roles was part of the organisation’s broader participation growth strategy to attract new players to the game.
“As a target demographic, Māori golfers sit alongside the identified player participation growth markets of children, youth, women, and those with disabilities – all of which we now have pathways for accessing golf throughout New Zealand.
“Aroha and Watene have been tasked with developing similar pathways to make participation in golf as easy as possible for any Māori players – whether as beginners or existing players. This could well involve the creation of a national inter-iwi ‘state of origin’ style competition replicating the inter-provincial golf championship already being played in New Zealand.”
Māori are one of the biggest demographic groups playing golf in New Zealand – with 7.66 per cent of registered club members identifying as being of Māori ethnicity. Comparatively, Government data agency Statistics New Zealand estimates that 17.1 percent of New Zealand’s general population identified as being of Māori ethnicity.
“Golf’s ambition is to increase the sport’s Māori participation rate up to a level in parallel with the general population – so there is a lot of work for us to do in that space,” Murphy said.
New Zealand Māori Golf Association general manager Mark Tito said the new partnership with Golf New Zealand culminated more than two years of work and would deliver meaningful outcomes for both organisations and te iwi Māori.
“After an extended period or working closely together, both organisations have recognised that by working in partnership, they can better enrich lives through the sport of golf in a meaningful way.”
