KEY POINTS:
New Zealand Golf chairman Phil Hassall wants greater co-ordination and co-operation with the NZPGA and Greg Turner's Golf Tour of New Zealand. He said his organisation needs to speak as a single voice for the sport in NZ.
These are encouraging words. It's about time someone in his position put his head above the parapet. Golf is the only high-profile sport in New Zealand with more than one national organisation.
Other sports have seen the light and unified. Golf has made the first step at a national level with the amalgamation of the men's and women's bodies. At district level, there are still too many dinosaurs resisting progress. Auckland is one of the worst culprits.
But Mr Hassall, while stopping short of calling for the merger of New Zealand Golf (NZG), the NZPGA and GTNZ, now has to back his words with action. The first thing the national body could do is drop the distinction between professional and amateur players at tournaments under their jurisdiction and make them open to all golfers.
That doesn't mean NZG needs to worry about offering prize money, or anything extra in prizes. What the change would do is offer playing opportunities to everybody who wants to enter. It's the competition that matters, not the prize.
For instance, struggling young professionals have long periods where they just have no tournaments to play. What do they do in their down time? They can practise till they hurt and they can play a few social rounds, but wouldn't good, hard competition like the New Zealand Strokeplay or the North Island championship be good for them? And wouldn't their presence improve the quality of the tournament for the rest of the field?
The reality is that most won't bother because there's no money on the table but there's nothing wrong with trying to lift the standard of play.
When NZG makes its own events open to all comers, they should then convince district associations and clubs to follow suit.
I'm keen for professionals to play in the top division of interclub golf too. How can it possibly be a bad thing when a good club pro plays for his team? Tennis' Caro Bowl can do it. Why not golf's Bissett Shield?
Golf isn't big enough in this country to be factionalised. Our systems aren't working. We aren't producing world-class players. It is the same game where we're all trying to get the ball from the first tee to the 18th hole in the fewest number of shots.
Let's have one national body running the show and pointing the way forward for all of us.
