Kiwi skipper
Kiwi three-time Volvo Ocean Race winner Brad Jackson has been announced as skipper of Dutch team AkzoNobel for the upcoming race around the world. This year’s event will be the 49-year-old’s seventh campaign, most recently coaching the Swedish all-women entry Team SCA in the 2014-15 edition. In his previous six times in the event, Jackson has never finished outside of the top four and his record of three race victories is matched by just two other sailors – fellow New Zealanders Stuart Bannatyne and Mark Christensen. Southland Golf Club president Michael Horn has confirmed the club has given itself until April to find a way forward or the Oreti Sands course will be closed.
Invercargill’s Oreti Sands is a well-known links course with various global golf publications rating it in the top 20 courses in New Zealand.
The Southland Golf Club held a meeting with members on Monday night to outline the dire situation. About 60 of the close to 100 members attended.
‘‘Members were advised that the committee had determined that the club could not continue to operate and maintain the golf course beyond April 2018 under the current arrangements,’’ Horn said.
Horn, who has been with the club since the course was first established in 1971, said it was not a pleasant message to deliver to the members but it was the reality of the situation.
The members backed the committee’s recommendations. There has been a steady decline in mem- bership numbers with the club dwindling from 400 in the year 2000 to about 100 where they are now at.
The committee has taken measures in recent years to reduce their costs and ensure the books balance. It included in May 2015 removing their last paid position at the club, their greenkeeper.
Instead, club members agreed to pick up the slack through volunteer hours, with about 10 members currently volunteering to help maintain the course.
About 40 per cent of the Southland Golf Club’s membership base currently deliver volunteer hours to ensure the club is able to function, Horn said.
The club has been able to improve its financial situation by reducing costs, but there still was not the money available to employ permanent staff and relieve the volunteer team. Maintaining that volunteer contribution long-term is viewed as unsustainable.
‘‘The club is very concerned about this position because if it ceases to maintain the course, a valuable links golf course will not only be lost to the golfing fraternity but to the city,’’ Horn said.
The Southland Golf Club committee believe the only way to potentially save the Oreti Sands course, before the April date they have set,is to find another organisation to help ensure it transforms into the destination course it should be.
‘‘The club is seeking a third party, with experience in tourism golf, to become involved to develop and operate the course and facilities in order to maximise its potential to attract domestic and international visitors to Invercargill to play it,’’ Horn said.
‘‘The club is exploring all opportunities to find parties interested in securing the future of the course.’’
Oreti Sands was redeveloped in 2008 with the Invercargill Licens- ing Trust and the Community Trust of Southland contributing $250,000 each to the project.
The hope was that redevelopment would help attract more golfers to Invercargill, however those spinoffs haven’t arrived.
At the moment the club didn’t have exact figures as to how many visitors play at the course each year, but Horn agreed that whatever the current number is, it is not sustainable long-term.
Horn said the club hasn’t had the resources or expertise to help entice the visitors to the course through a structured marketing plan which was needed.
‘‘The objective (of the redevelopment) was to attract visitors from both overseas and New Zealand to come to Invercargill and play the course, due to it’s similarity to Scottish links golf courses. Unfortunately, that objective was not fulfilled.
‘‘It proved far more difficult to attract visitors to Invercargill than anticipated.’’
One of the attractions of the world’s southernmost links course is, it is tough to play. However, that attraction also has counted against the Southland Golf Club, in terms of the challenging course putting some perspective annual members off joining the club.
Southland Golf Club has the smallest membership number of Invercargill’s four Invercargill clubs. All four clubs have a battle on their hands at the moment to ensure they are in a healthy position long-term. The struggle is a common theme to many sporting clubs in Southland however, golf’s struggles are amplified given the cost involved to maintain a course.