golfing and yachting

Until I arrived here in New Zealand I was convinced that golfing and yachting were rich men's hobbies. However, in NZ this is not true. I paid $80 entrance fee and $1/day as full member of the Narrows golf club in Hamilton. I bought 200 used balls @ 40 cents each from a garage sale and have been using those for 3 years. The new two piece balls seem to last forever. Very often during a round I found more balls on the course than I lost.

Outside the ob lines at Narrows, I have found hundreds of lost balls. Here are just a few. I do not need to buy any new golf balls in NZ.

Marina charges for yachts are not applicable to a trailer yacht which is usually kept at home on the front lawn and the wind is always free! Golf is a very expensive hobby in Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and all South East Asian countries. In New Zealand, you lucky, lucky; everyone has a chance to play this game paying green fees from $10 to $30 for a round of golf. Very few kiwis would want to join a club and be tied down to one course because they have so many other courses to choose from. Freedom of choice is a big kiwi thing here. They choose to change four things every 3 to 5 years: car, job, house and partner!

There are so many beautiful golf courses located every where in NZ. It would be a sin to live here and not play golf! It is not really necessary to buy expensive clubs because you can still slice the ball with a $1500 driver if you swing over the top and from the outside in! Actually it is the person behind the club that matters most! However, do not buy junk clubs from The Warehouse. They are too heavy for you. They ruin your swing and give you back pain when you grow old! Starting with a good quality second hand half-set is the only way to go. After playing for a few months, when you are sure that golf is your game or when you have an official handicap, it will be time to start gradually build up your set to 14 clubs, not at the beginning. Good second hand half-sets can be bought cheaply from the driving range or even buying one club at a time from newspaper ads if you really know what you are doing. Golf books are available from the Hamilton public library and many DVD's are now available from the shops.

In the very beginning, it would be wise to remove the driver and the 3 iron from the bag. Use a 3-wood for all your tee shots and add a 60 degree lobe wedge to your bag. The long clubs are the most difficult clubs to use. Very likely, your first golf set will not be suitable for your height and weight any way unless you have good advice from some where. It will be difficult to continue playing this game with poorly fitted equipment and expect to challenge Tiger Woods one day soon. All Tiger's clubs are made to measure just for him. Many new golfers buy a full set after six months after they have learned more about the game, the equipment or after they have an official golf handicap awarded by their club.

Throughout their golfing career, golfers will continue to discard or add more clubs to their bag. The most commonly replaced clubs in the bag are the putter and the No: 1 wood, called the driver. Additions are fairway woods and utility clubs. However, the rules of golf allow us to carry a maximum of only 14 clubs in the bag at any one time during a match.
It takes time to gain a comprehensive knowledge of golf equipment. Based on each individual's unique physique and style, his 14 clubs are necessarily slightly different from his playing partner's. Putters and drivers are highly personal items. When you see a tourist hire a set of clubs to play a round in NZ, he is not really a golfer. Serious golfers carry their own clubs wherever they travel. Malaysian Airline transport golf sets for free for all passengers! Freedom Air and Air Asia don't.

To simplify club selection a new golfer should just buy a matching set of ready made irons (3 to 9, PW & SW), putter and woods (1, 3, 4 & 5) from a sporting goods store or pro-shop and use that at the beginning. As his ability and knowledge improve he may want to replace one or two clubs later. The science of golf clubs construction is a very complex and controversial subject. New golf sets from Rebel Sports start from $350 without bag and trolley, which cost another $200. There are other related golfing accessories needed: new glove, balls, tees, shoes, trolleys, caps, umbrella, rain wear etc. So, be prepared to spend $700 or more if you want to buy everything new, all at once. However, please do not spend this amount until you are sure golf is your game. At least wait until you have scored a par and a birdie! New golf clubs do not retain their resale value as well as second hand sets.
Every golfer has his own favourite golf theory. Manufacturers and professional golfers talk about balance, swing weights, flex point, face angles, lay angles and many other variables like swing planes, sway, stance, set up, rythm and delayed hits etc. Ben Hogan talked about Supination and Pronation! New high tech materials e.g. titanium and carbon fibre are now used in the manufacture of club heads and shafts to give desirable properties like more distance, club head speed, less weight, flex and whipping action for greater distance and control of the club face at impact. New and ignorant golfers spend a fortune on clubs and other golf equipment and still are unable to improve their game much. They fail to realize that the person behind the club is still the main variable! The golf swing varies from day to day even for a professional golfer! With the best equipment, he still needs to practise regularly.

The best place for doing this, is at the driving range with a bucket of balls and using a target. However, one must also practise using other clubs beside the driver! It is always more realistic to practise the pitching wedge and the putter more often than the driver. Do not forget the other thirteen clubs in the bag! Be sure to spend as much time practising putting as you spend driving the ball. Unless you are able to use each and every club in the bag to the same level of expertist, you cannot be considered a golfer! You are merely a ball hitter like me!

Most golfers find difficulties with their short game because of lack of practice. They neglect to spend quality time with the wedges and their putters. In fact most beginners practise using only the No: 1 wood at the driving range and nothing else. It is a wrong approach! This club should only be used after you have mastered the mid irons. A driver is used 14 times or less per round, whereas the putter is used by beginners for more than 36 times on average per round of 18 holes! So, remember to practise putting twice as often; same thing with all the wedges including the sand wedge! If everyone does this, we should all become single handicappers in no time at all!

The biggest secret in golf: We tend to practise too much on the driver because we like to watch the ball fly like a bird. We love to show off with our drivers at the driving range instead of spending quality time practising our weaker clubs. A change in our attitude towards practice will result in a corresponding change in our standard of play if we really are serious about improving our scores at this fascinating game! A three foot putt is counted as one stroke, so does a 300 metre drive! In stroke play, both are equally important!

I have been playing golf, on and off since I started playing the game in 1980. My lowest handicap was 23 in 1981. Then I gave up this game in 1985 and took up sailing which is less demanding, time wise. I was busy with building a career, building a house, raising a family, migrating to New Zealand, sending my children to university. When I retired from work in the year 2000 I picked up the game again.

Initially I played golf in NZ mainly for the exercise. I used the driving range for exercising my upper body. Using the woods and long irons, I hit 100 balls daily at Brian Boys. Then I continued at the lake side and practised every day for another hour chipping with the short irons or wedges. This gave me my lower body exercise because I had to walk around the park to collect all my practice balls after hitting them! They were uaually sprayed all over the place. I always penalized myself by chipping some more; all the balls that have missed the target (an imaginary 3 metre diameter circle)!

This gave me more practice and made the practice drill even more realistic, especially for the shorter chip shots around the green. Golf for me now is just my way of getting regular exercise. By doing some thing that is interesting for me, I am motivated to continue exercising for keeping fit for as long as possible.
When Ah Nam, Tsun Kong and Barling heard about me hitting golf balls they invited me for a game. They knew that I played golf 25 years ago in Miri and they wished to find out just how good I am now after pratising continuously for 3 years in NZ. Ah Nam of course wanted to get some tips from me to cure his horrible slice off the tee. I noticed that Tsun Kong also had a slice which prevented him from executing a full swing with his driver and placing a limit on his potentials.
Barling’s drive was almost faultless, his long irons were very consistent and his putting was confident. His chipping and putting has always been first rate. He scored both days in the low 90’s beating Tsun Kong by a few strokes. I have a lot of work to do to catch up with these two guys. Next game I will try to beat them! It is so nice to win some times, isn't it? In golf you can beat anyone after you have a handicap awarded to you by your club. This handicap system levels the playing field so that every one has a fair chance to win irrespective of his standard of play.