Golf club puts $100k into scholarship
The sale of the South Canterbury golf club with a famous name is set to help young people in the township achieve.
Sharing a name with the home of golf in Scotland, this St Andrews Golf Club was sold to a local resident last year as membership numbers fell to 66.
The sale price has not been disclosed – it was listed in the $600,000-$700,000 band – but former club president Graham Cadigan said $100,000 of the proceeds will go towards a scholarship for academic, cultural, and sporting advancement.
The scholarship will be administered by the Aoraki Foundation. Applicants will have to be born or living in the St Andrews district, and be under 18 years of age.
A further $40,000 will be distributed to other South Canterbury golf courses where former members have chosen to take up memberships following the club’s closure. Another $35,000 will be donated back into the St Andrews community.
‘‘The committee had some robust discussions during the past six months, and we took those recommendations back to the members,’’ Cadigan said.
Cadigan said the committee had yet to decide which organisation in the St Andrews community the $35,000 will go to.
The remainder of the funds will be held in a trust, and reinvested in golf in Timaru; potentially under a proposed golf hub umbrella, he said.
The golf hub idea was first floated after the club went up for sale. The Highfield, St Andrews, and Timaru golf clubs are aiming to share membership fees, introduce shorter formats of the game, and enlist the help of a professional trainer to create pathways into the sport, as part of an effort to get more juniors into golf.
Cadigan said there will be a meeting sometime this month to discuss the next stage in the golf hub process.
‘‘Apart from the concept, which we think’s good, we don’t really know what our next step is to be honest.
‘‘The main focus has been getting it signed off between the three clubs, which we’ve done and achieved, so now we just need to work out how we’re going to get ourselves up and running.’’