Millbrook Resort has won two top prizes at the 2016 World Golf Awards, which celebrates and rewards excellence in golf tourism, world class courses and golf destinations.
The World Golf Awards, held in Portugal last month, named Millbrook as the winner of both Oceania’s and New Zealand’s best golf hotel awards. The Oceania region represents Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
The inaugural Hawke’s Bay 4-Course Classic, celebrating golf and wine across the Hawke’s Bay region, finished with winners from Nelson, Purangi, Royal Auckland and Mt Maunganui.
More than 110 golfers and partners from 45 golf clubs in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Fiji took part in the four-day event, playing Maraenui, Napier, Hawke’s Bay and Hastings golf clubs.
Ryan Fox is now on the world’s second biggest golf circuit, the European Tour.
Fox gained full playing rights for the European Tour after finishing fourth in the points standings for Europe’s second tier circuit, the Challenge Tour.
More than 140 caddies will be required for the next year’s ISPS Handa New Zealand Open in Queenstown at The Hills and Millbrook courses from March 9-12.
At the previous event, last March, there were several volunteer caddies involved on the final day’s play, either caddying for professionals or assisting some of the amateur players.
The three recipients of the Lydia Ko scholarship have been announced by New Zealand Golf.
They are Alanna Campbell (Bay of Plenty), Momoka Kobori (Canterbury) and Eujin Kang (Auckland).
The goal of the scholarship is to better prepare New Zealand’s top women amateur golfers for success on the world stage, said New Zealand Golf’s high performance manager Gregg Thorpe.
“Without access to the right information bridging the gap, from being a strong national level player to being an internationally successful amateur can be a difficult one,’’ Thorpe said.
Many of our New Zealand Left handed members have just returned from Surfers Paridise, where we joined nearly 200 Australian men and Lady Lefties to play in the 51st Australian Left handed Championship held at the beautiful Royal Pines Course.
Read MoreWhen the world’s richest golf circuit for women comes to New Zealand for the first time it will be held at a golf course just a year old.
The LPGA (Ladies Professional Golfers’ Association) Tour last month announced that the New Zealand Women’s Open would be added to it’s schedule for 2017 and that it would be held in Auckland at Windross Farm.
The trophy will show Louis Dobbelaar as the winner of the New Zealand Amateur Championship but it will not reveal the marathon path he took to get there.
Dobbelaar became the youngest winner at age 15 of the New Zealand Amateur in the tournament’s 123-year history but he had to survive some hectic battles to get there.
Omanu Golf Club in the Bay of Plenty will be the venue for the 2017 New Zealand Mid Amateur Men’s and Women’s Championship.
This is an excellent venue in the heart of Mt Maunganui – a popular beach and golfing destination.
Dates have been for January 13-15, securing a Friday-to-Sunday slot in mid-January in a similar fashion to this year's Mid Am in Mangawhai.
Brad Shilton topped off his best payday as a golfer with a runaway victory in the Harewood Open in Christchurch.
The Auckland professional had the previous week finished third to American Brandt Snedeker in the Fiji International which earned him $A71,000 ($NZ76,000).
New Zealand’s prospects for next year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Wellington look strong following last month’s event in South Korea.
The Royal Wellington Golf Club will host next year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur, the world’s most televised amateur golf event, and anticipation has only been heightened with solid performances by the New Zealanders in South Korea.
New Zealand was tied with the United States when finishing sixth in the Eisenhower Trophy.
The tournament, officially named the world amateur teams’ championship, was held in Mexico last month.
The New Zealand team comprised Luke Toomey, Nick Voke and Ryan Chisnall.
In a format where the best two scores counted towards the team’s score over four rounds, New Zealand finished at 15 under par. That was only four shots shy of second-placed England.
Australia was a runaway winner with a score of 38 under par.
Two brilliant rounds paved the way for club professional Dominic Barson to win the Taranaki Open, the opening event of this season’s Charles Tour.
Barson tied the course record on day two of the tournament when scoring an eight-under par 64 at the New Plymouth Golf Club at Ngamotu.
Developing better and more capable Golf Club managers was the primary focus of the 2016 Golf Managers Association of New Zealand, 7th Biennial Conference that took place inWellington between August 28 and August 30 2016. The Conference attracted a number of New Zealand’s renowned sports and business leaders as presenters and just on 100 golf club manager delegates and golf industry personnel.
Read MoreIt was another trophy for Lydia Ko’s cabinet.
The latest was the Rolex Annika Major Award as the best performer in the year’s five majors.
The award is named after one of the game’s former greats, Annika Sorenstam and she was on hand to present the trophy to Ko after the year’s final major, The Evian Championship in France last month.
Golfsmith, the largest dedicated golf retailer in North America, has filed for bankruptcy.
Golfsmith previously had 109 stories in the United States and 55 in Canada. It employed about 2300 people. The bankruptcy comes on the heels of Nike announcing it would no longer manufacture golf equipment and would return to its core of apparel and shoes.
In addition, Sports Authority, once the largest US sporting-goods chain, moved to close down after failing to emerge from bankruptcy this year. Sports Chalet, a chain of about 50 locations, also liquidated this year.
