Golf: National coaching position may not be filled

1.00pm

Mal Tongue may not be replaced as national director of coaching as New Zealand Golf rethinks its coaching strategy in the wake of the sport's top-level bust-up.

Wellingtonian Tongue, his five national assistants and NZ Golf chief executive Peter Dale all resigned earlier this month after Tongue and Dale's frosty relationship finally disintegrated after 18 months.

NZ Golf is to enlist an employment agency to search for Dale's replacement but the national body's high performance manager Graeme Scott believes a different tack is needed on the coaching front.

"We're looking at a variety of options and it doesn't necessarily have to replicate what we had before," Scott said.

"I think it's important there's not a knee-jerk reaction to this, it's still very early days. But we would be foolish to think we could pluck six guys out and expect them to work as a unit... that was a very special programme with six coaches who worked very closely together to develop it."

Scott said NZ Golf was comfortable the build up to October's Eisenhower Trophy world amateur teams championship in Puerto Rico would not be derailed by the departure of Tongue and his assistants.

He used Wellington-based Kiwi No 1 Brad Iles as an example of an elite player who would continue to receive expert tutelage from his personal coach, in this case Tongue.

A more immediate area of concern was ensuring talent identification and development of 12 to 15-year-old players was not put on ice.

NZ Golf chairman John Patterson believed a fresh approach to coaching could be "very beneficial" and raised the prospect of the New Zealand team travelling to Puerto Rico without a national coach.

"I've never seen an Australian coach at am Eisenhower and I've been to four or five. It's not decided, but there are alternatives to a technical coach...maybe we take a motivator instead."

Patterson said the board would look for a chief executive with strong managerial skills first and foremost, though admitted a background in golf would "probably tip the scales in his favour".

Patterson, who will stay on as acting chief executive in the interim but will cut back the amount of time he spends at the NZ Golf Wellington headquarters, insists there is no hurry to fill the position.

The board held what Patterson described as a "feel good" meeting with NZ Golf's office staff yesterday in an effort to boost morale.

"Everybody cleared the air a bit and just confirmed we're heading in the same direction. The board just wanted to show they have ever confidence in the staff of NZ Golf... it's business as usual," he said.

Patterson is unsure if the saga will have repercussions for the six-member board -- Patterson, Mike Alexander (Taupo), Phil Hassall (Hamilton), Doug Ritchie (Waikanae), Roy Summer (Wanaka) and Dave Howie (Hastings) -- at the association's annual meeting in Wellington on May 18.

However, Patterson confirmed he, Summers and Hassall were standing for re-election as their respective terms expired at the annual meeting.

- NZPA