Golfers’ Open dream nears
Sir Bob Charles recalls hopping in his shiny blue Sunbeam Talbot, driving over the Rimutakas and launching his glittering career as an unknown 18-year-old at Royal Wellington.
New Zealand’s best-known golfer was back on Monday, 63 years on, urging some of the country’s best to seize a similarly career-changing moment in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship starting next Thursday.
Ten New Zealanders in a 120-strong field will chase amateur golf’s ultimate prize in the 72-hole strokeplay event: direct entry to The Masters and Open Championship next year.
Four of the 10 - James Anstiss, Ryan Chisnall, Daniel Hillier and Kerry Mountcastle - listened intently to Charles in the Royal Wellington clubhouse. Just to reinforce the point, the Claret Jug and Masters trophy sat gleaming, either side of the APAC trophy.
‘‘You’re kind of speechless when you see something like that. You read the names that have won the tournament. It’s like a dream. Is this really happening? You always dream of playing in a major and then you realise how close it can be,’’ said Queenstownbased Anstiss, back from Southeastern Louisiana University.
Charles won the 1954 New Zealand Open, beating an Open Championship winner Peter Thomson, then hoisted the Claret Jug himself nine years later at Royal Lytham and St Annes.
He has his own 90 per cent replica at home in Christchurch, which all the Open Championship winners receive after returning the trophy for the next year’s tournament.
Back in 1954 it was bedlam on the 18th at Royal Wellington after Charles putted out and was carried off the green shoulder-high by four Masterton clubmates. ‘‘I was shouting at them all the way: let me down.’’ That famous photo graces the clubhouse wall.
At 81 he can still walk the talk, too. Only this month, Charles shot 68 in the pro-am for the LPGA Tour event at Windross Farm in south Auckland.
‘‘I was given a couple of shortish putts. I was actually 32 on the front nine, which was the second one I played, so I was pretty chuffed with that. More so because my lady pro, Brittany Lincicome, was 50 yards past me off the tee,’’ he said.
‘‘I hit the ball about 220 these days and she was hitting it 270-plus. I just kept the ball out of trouble, hit the fairways, hit the greens and made the putts.’’
Sound advice for any golfer, let alone those chasing their Masters and Open dream.
It all got a bit more real for the New Zealanders on Monday as they posed for photos with Charles and the trophies, and workmen descended on Royal Welling- ton to complete camera scaffolding around the course. The ninth edition of the tournament - hosted by New Zealand for the first time - will be beamed live to 160 countries with top golf analyst and former PGA pro Frank Nobilo in the commentary box.
Royal Wellington hand over their course on Friday to tournament organisers - a powerful joint venture between The Masters and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. Around 250 volunteers are locked in for the week.
All the club wants now is sun and wind to dry the course. The greens are in top order but parts of the fairways are soft and waterlogged after the onslaught of rain continued in recent months. Still, it didn’t hamper the golfers in a casual round in the spring sun on Monday, as Chisnall shot 65 and Hillier 66.