Off the tee: Albatross and the Eagles, you hum it, I'll play it

James Kupa, with his wife Jo, could claim to be NZ's most entertaining golfer

"It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing," Ella Fitzgerald used to sing. It seems an apt theme song for the head professional at Chamberlain Park, James Kupa.

For much of his career the 44-year-old has combined his golf with a singing career in partnership with his wife, Jo.

In the busy pre-Christmas season he finished a coaching clinic in Christchurch in his role as a member of the national coaching panel, hopped on a plane to Auckland and changed into his party duds in the car as his wife drove them to the waterfront to get on a boat to sing for a corporate night out.

The couple, billed as J and J, met through singing when Jo had already established herself professionally working in Auckland, notably with the Diamond Lil Show. Kupa was working in Auckland as an assistant pro but he was out of action because he had injured his arm.

"I had a total reconstruction of my left arm," he recalls, "and they put in seven titanium screws. I'd done the damage because my technique wasn't right and it put stress on parts of the arm.

"I needed to raise some money for my dad's headstone, but I couldn't win any so I entered a karaoke competition where the judges were Diamond Lil, Bunny Walters and Jo Punter, as she was then. It was at a restaurant and the prize money was $3000.

"I sang Me and Mrs Jones and Kissing in the Back Row of the Movies and I won. It was the proudest moment of my life. I bought dad's headstone and met my future wife.

"Jo walked up to me at the end of the competition and she asked, 'Do you know any more songs?' And I admitted that was all I knew.

"I started going round to the restaurant to learn more songs. We got together, got married and we've been together ever since. We sing from the 60s through to the 2005s. I don't do heavy metal and I don't do rap or opera."

Singing and golf have rhythm in common, but the two sides of Kupa's life have sometimes puzzled his audiences.

"One of the gigs we did was at the Omaha golf course. That particular year I came second in the Omaha Classic behind Steve Alker. I got up on stage to sing and I could see people thinking, 'I know that face' and as the night went on they got the courage to ask, 'Are you Jamie Kupa?'."

Jo has been his mentor in the singing and he acknowledges a number of golfing mentors. He grew up in Hawkes Bay and was taught by the legendary Ernie Southerden at Napier Golf Club.

"When I started playing in Hawkes Bay there were Stuart Jones, Pixie McDonald and Peter Creighton. I was lucky to be brought up in that era when those guys were still good and I was coming through and they were willing to pass the information on to me."

Kupa began his professional apprenticeship at Flaxmere with Brian Doyle, who is now the national coach. Later he worked under Peter Stoddart at Titirangi. He learned confidence from John Griffin and the lines and angles of the golf swing from Mal Tongue.

He is grateful for the support of Adrian Farnsworth, his boss at Chamberlain Park, where he has earned a reputation for being an outstanding coach of young people. These days those talents are being used nationally and a number of established players have come to him for help. He jokes that he would probably starve if he had to play golf for a living, but his game remains good enough to put him second on the NZPGA order of merit a couple of seasons ago.

"I've been lucky enough to have two gifts. The gift to play golf and the gift to sing and share my gift with everybody. Coaching is my passion, singing is my hobby and I'm lucky to be able to make a bit of a living out of both.

"People always told me I'd have to choose one and drop the other. But I would hate to do that.

"It provides me with a perfect balance of life."