Maramarua Golf Club.
Auckland, New Zealand.
This Course will always hold a special place in my heart as I think back over my time playing golf.

This Course is approximately a 45 minutes drive, South from the centre of Auckland, which is situated near the top of the North Island of that beautiful little country of New Zealand.

It was a beautiful spring day and this was my very first, ever, attempt to play this wonderful game, known to us as golfing.

I had spent the previous year spending money, and a considerable amount of time, just simply trying to perfect that beautiful sound and feel when on the rare occasion you hit that sweet spot. You would know that feel, that satisfying click as the ball effortlessly accelerates towards the spot you had aimed for. As a novice this is of course a rare occasion, but on this day it happened only once with me.

Let me tell you about it. I teed up on the 6th tee, which is a steeply falling away 147 meter par three. On the right is a rising bank with tall pine trees. On the immediate left is low bush and falls away sharply down hill. The gap left to go through is really quite narrow, but with such a short par three you can see the pin very easily. On the left is a small bunker. The objective is to aim slightly right, and just short of the pin which allows the ball to roll across and close to the pin.

I used my very "second hand", old, 5 iron, yes a very old iron, that had the handle unravelling between my left hand fingers.

I swung and struck perfectly, it oh so sweetly, I looked up to see the ball taking the perfect projectory landing just as I had pictured it. It has been a very rare experience, believe me. Remember this was my first game of golf ever! That's it! Ive got it, this game is so easy, and I can now see I will excel in this game. I strutted down the hill, made a good second put, leaving a short put directly into the hole. A par!

I was hooked! Oh, if I had only known! The rest of the day was spent loosing balls, scoring 9-10s, and becoming increasingly frustrated, and baffled, just as to what had gone wrong since that 6th hole?

That was some four years ago, and my handicap is coming down slowly. But it has been a long, and steady struggle, with some highs and many lows.

That day at a small country golf course at the bottom of the world, that lovely little Country in the South Pacific, will always hold a special place in my heart. Maybe one day I will return and try, just try, to repeat that sweet drive of that par three tee at the 6th!

However I do take some comfort from Sir Walter Simpson.

I quote........
"Excessive golfing dwarfs the intellect. Nor is this to be wondered at when we consider that the more fatuously vacant the mind is, the better for play. It has been observed that absolute idiots play the steadiest!"

Copyright © Steve Waulds jnr