“The high degrees of excellence and passionate commitment evidenced by all our winners shows that the sport of golf is in a very healthy state – from a grass roots level, out in provincial New Zealand, and right up to the pinnacle of high-performance golf on the international stages. This bodes extremely well for the sport in the future.”
Golf Performance of the Year Award: Lydia Ko
New Zealand’s number one ranked woman golfer had a 2022 year which reflected her mantle on the global stage – walking away with three tournament trophies – and now adding the Golf Performance of the Year Award to the tally.
The pinnacle of Ko’s 2022 victories was the gold medal placing at the LPGA Tour’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship event, which boasted the highest first-place prize purse in women’s sporting history.
In addition to winning the CME Group Tour Championship, Ko also captured the Vare Trophy for carding the lowest scoring average for the year – winning the accolade for the second straight year. Concurrently, Ko won the LPGA Tour’s 2022 Player of the Year award.
Ko also won the Rolex Player of the Year – earning two more LPGA Hall of Fame points which took her tally to 25, with 27 needed to be inducted into the LPGA Tour’s Hall of Fame.
Club of the Year Award: Pupuke Golf Club, Auckland
A progressive golf club which has taken a ‘corporate’ approach to its various activities – while still very much remaining locally community and member focused – has taken out the Club of the Year Award.
Taking a long-term operational view, Pupuke Golf Club’s committee completed a strategic plan review which provided a refined and strengthened focus on how the club should not only position itself within the surrounding community, but also how it should market its golfing activities – ultimately creating a golfing ‘hub’ arching across multiple revenue generating streams.
Coming out of the review, Pupuke Golf Club on Auckland’s North Shore was one of the first golf clubs in the Greater Auckland region to participate in a multi-party green space enhancement initiative involving Auckland Council and the Department of Conservation (D.O.C) to improve the course’s natural environment.
Much of Pupuke Golf Club’s in-depth work in the environmental enhancement and partnerships space now forms the basis of North Golf’s case study, which many other clubs in the region have adopted as the basis for their similar plans. The Department of Conservation is also using its relationship with Pupuke Golf Club as a template for other clubs around the country to follow or adapt.
The success of Pupuke Golf Club’s natural landscaping enhancement and wildlife protection project enabled the club to give solid evidence in opposition to the Auckland Council Draft Investment Plan – supported by neighbourhood community organisations such as the Centennial Park Bush Society which administers a nature reserve adjoining the course.
Elsewhere within the club’s player number growth initiatives, Pupuke Golf Club was cited for its success in bringing scores of new players to the sport – particularly women. The club’s female-orientated Chip & Sip initiative for example was originally an eight-week summer twilight programme which signed up some 120 players running across three hour-long time slots at an entry level coaching fee of $27.50 per night. Pupuke’s Chip & Sip programme has subsequently been refined and will be running again this coming summer.
Throughout a dynamic period of change over recent years, Pupuke Golf Club’s management team held a number of face-to-face member engagement sessions to keep members fully briefed on where the club was heading… and why. This included utilising the Harbour Sport’s ActivAsian team, which enabled the club to effectively engage with its sizeable Korean membership. This resulted in the club fostering and supporting a multicultural environment reflecting the local community demographic.
Targeting school-age golfers as part of its long-term membership funnel, Pupuke Golf Club’s management also instigated a raft of programmes establishing strong relationships with local primary and secondary schools – delivering specific ‘fit for purpose’ age and ability appropriate sessions.
In 2022, Pupuke Golf Club won the Harcourts Cooper & Co. Harbour Sports Club of the Year for the North Harbour region.
All Abilities Golfer of the Year Award: Guy Harrison, Hawke’s Bay
An amazing self-belief that physical disability is no obstacle for achieving greatness on the golfing stage has been the motivational spur for All Abilities Golfer of the Year Award winner Guy Harrison.
The All Abilities Golfer of the Year Award is bestowed on a player who has inspired others to play golf – overcoming any physical or mental obstacles they may be living with.
Harrison was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy as a pre-schooler. Cerebral Palsy is a neurological disease which can severely disable a person’s muscles. Due to the condition, he finds it hard to balance his legs – meaning he must walk through on his downswing like golfing great Gary Player.
The Halberg Youth Disability Council member and eight handicapper has been swinging on the fairways of Hawke’s Bay courses since he was a five-year-old – regularly competing against his dad over the decades, and hoping one day to wear the Silver Fern and take on the best of the world in the Paralympics.
Harrison’s ongoing golfing journey saw him crowned the 2022 Mount Open All Abilities Champion in Tauranga. He also played in the New Zealand All Abilities Championship held at the New Zealand Open. Guy is in his second year of university – studying for a bachelor of sport and exercise science as well as being a mentor in the young physical disabilities’ scene.
Through his work on the Halberg Youth Disability Council, Guy is a conduit for giving other young people with disabilities opportunities in sport. He administers activities in the Hawke’s Bay region and runs numerous events annually – providing youngsters with disabilities the chance of trying new recreational activities.
He hopes that one day golf will be included in the Paralympics competition schedule, so he and many other golfers with disabilities can participate in one of the world’s premier sporting events.
“I love my golf. The challenge with golf at the Paralympics is how can you make it fair? There are so many disability classifications out there that trying to design a classification system to make the playing field fair and equal is hard. Hopefully in 2032 or 2028 the organising committee can have it sorted.”
Golf Administrator of the Year Award: Lucinda Searle
Searle only began working on a part-time basis at Taranaki Golf in the second quarter of last year– dedicating much of her attention towards raising the profile and appeal of golf in the participation space. She has directly worked with 11 of the 18 golf clubs in Taranaki, and has on average three volunteers actively assisting with new players per club.
Networking with schools, local golfing sector influencers, and regional sporting entities such as Sport Taranaki and the Taranaki Secondary Schools Sports Association to spread the word about golf, her efforts have seen the sport boom in Taranaki – particularly amongst children and women demographics.
Since Searle took on the role, junior golf membership numbers in Taranaki have increased by more than 35 percent – from 360 to 502 junior members. Some 68 young golfers attended the recent Taranaki Age Group Championship – up from 49 players in 2022 and 30 in 2021.
Volunteer of the Year Award: Brian Chapman, Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club
Helping save a golf club from near financial ruin and turning it into a sustainable commercial entity – including attending some 150 consecutive committee and board meetings in the process over the space of 17-years – has earned Brian Chapman the title of Volunteer of the Year Award winner.
Chapman, a company secretary and accountant by profession, has been an active member of Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club just north of Wellington since 2001 when he relocated to the Kapiti Coast. He initially became involved in voluntary work through organising national events at the club, which transitioned into running regular competition days, alongside a huge involvement in veterans’ golfing activities.
Community Coach of the Year Award: Wiremu Neho, Whangarei Golf Club
What started simply as a dad learning to coach his kids in the rudimentary skills of golf has now transitioned into more than two decades of being a volunteer golfing instructor for New Zealand Community Coach of the Year Wiremu Neho.
The Whangarei sportsman educationalist first began coaching golf in 2002 after hanging up his rugby league boots and stepping back from his role as a rugby coach. With three young children picking up golf clubs, Wiremu thought it would be a good thing to follow them into the sport, and like a diligent dad, he learnt the fundamentals of the game and began coaching the trio.
Wiremu’s teaching ability quickly rose to the fore – with his 17-year-old son Kadin Neho winning the New Zealand Amateur Championship in 2013, becoming the first Northlander to win the title since 1893. Under Wiremu’s guidance, Kadin evolved to become a pillar in the Northland team which went on to win the national interprovincial golfing title.
Two of the current Northland golfing team participating at national interprovincial level started playing under Wiremu’s initial coaching guidance, while another three talented players are looming in the wings for possible provincial call-ups.
Mentoring students is a near full-time commitment for Wiremu – either on the golf course, or in his profession as a full-time relieving teacher at Whangarei schools.
Professional Coach of the Year Award: Kevin Smith, Kapiti Coast.
Coaching is in the family blood for lifelong golfing coach Kevin Smith – winner of the Professional Coach of the Year Award – who has been mentoring and advising players ever since he left school some 40-years ago.
Smith divides his professional coaching time between the Otaki and Paraparaumu Beach golf clubs, where he runs group and individual lessons for kids and beginners, all the way up to pennant-level players, drawing equally rewarding outcomes from all abilities.
He defines working with beginners and casual golfers as being a ‘building coach’ where the changes to improving technique are usually bigger – because the players are making bigger mistakes – while coaching high performance golfers is more defined as being a ‘fixing coach’ there to tweak and finetune players’ techniques.
Sharing his teaching tips as an author, he wrote a golf training manual called The Complete Guide to Good Golf – Golf Steps from Beginners through to Advanced Players.
Environment Club of the Year Award: Paraparaumu Golf Club, Kapiti Coast
Landscaping one of New Zealand’s best seaside links golf courses back to the way God and nature intended it to be hundreds, and even thousands, of years ago has seen Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club being named as the Environment Club of the Year Award winner.
For some 16 years Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club on the Kapiti Coast just north of Wellington has been removing evidence of human intervention – returning much the course to its natural state. The long-term programme has seen exotic trees felled, wetlands created, sand dunes reshaped to their original undulations, tee blocks reshaped, man-made retaining walls removed, new grasses planted along fairway edges, and cart paths realigned.
The club’s mantra for the enhancement process is to provide: “An island of close-to-natural ecosystem within an increasingly urbanised environment.” Of the 50 hectares that Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club occupies, 20 hectares or 40 percent is retained in a naturalised state.
Golfing Event of the Year Award: Flat Day Out at Pupuke Golf Club, Auckland
The creation of a summer afternoon golfing party-like phenomenon which combines a mix of a youth-focused dance party vibes complete with a mobile food truck, live DJ, and plenty of ‘liquid refreshments’ has taken out the Golfing Event of the Year Award.
The Golfing Event of the Year Award is presented to a recipient or a club on any level whose organisational skills far exceeds the expectations of both organisers and participants – by delivering a memorable event or activity within the golfing arena and spilling into the wider community.
The Flat Day Out experience first organised in 2022 by Pupuke Golf Club on Auckland’s North Shore was targeted at both teenage/early-20s non-golfers and golfers who enjoy having fun on the course with their mates – with portable speakers blasting out from golf carts, and a highly-sociable participant environment with little adherence to the more formal and stricter rules of the game.
Some 100 participants from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds and genders attended the nine-hole Ambrose scoring event. Because of the Gen-Z playing participant demographic, there was a huge amount of shared social media feeds and posts emanating online – which all helped boost both the profile of golf and Pupuke Golf Club’s profile to a new audience who may otherwise have preconceived ideas about the sport.
The overwhelming success of Pupuke Golf Club’s inaugural Flat Day Out last year prompted the venue to organise another Flat Day Out this spring.
