Pro-Am tees off in Whangarei

Northlander and New Zealand Amateur Champion Kadin Neho was one of the 97 golfers to take part. Photo/John Stone

PA whopping 97 golfers descended on the Whangarei Golf Club as the inaugural Pro-Am tournament came to town.

Twenty-eight professionals played alongside 69 amateurs who were made up of locals and keen golfers from as far south as Warkworth.

Organising committee member John McLeod said while he felt Wednesday's tournament was a success, planning had already started for next year's event.

"Being our first one it wasn't widely advertised, but we filled the field pretty well,'' McLeod said of the event which came about after New Zealand Golf suggested they host the tournament as part of the national PGA competition. "The intention is to make it bigger and better next year.

"What we were aiming at was having 30 professionals, we had 28 which doesn't quite equate.''

McLeod said the hope for next year was to have a three-to-one ratio of amateurs to professionals, forming tidy groups of four for the tournament.

Helping appeal to professional golfers was the fact that they could play three tournaments in a week as Omaha Beach hosted one earlier in the week and the Whangarei
tournament was followed by one in Waitangi yesterday.

While many from outside the region took part in the event, Northland had one professional taking part in the form of Caroline Bon.

McLeod said his highlight of the day was seeing one of the professionals nail a hole-in-one on the 17th hole, winning $500 in the process.