Mt Maunganui's $17,000, 18-hole Pro-Am, a welcome late-season addition to the New Zealand PGA calendar, is back on again this week with a new naming rights sponsor.
Coast Papamoa Beach have stepped in as major sponsor of the one-day tournament, with next Friday's event featuring 51 professionals - most of them linking with three-player amateur business and corporate teams.
Mt Maunganui was a long-time summer host of the New Zealand PGA but dropped off the radar in the mid-1980s before the Pro-Am format was added back on to the PGA's pre-Christmas summer swing a year ago. Most of the professionals will play in Wednesday's $10,000 Cambridge Pro-Am before heading to the Mount.
Robert Rookes, Mt Maunganui Golf Club's director of golf, has assembled a stellar cast headlined by US-based former Mount player Josh Geary, defending champion Michael Hendry and the likes of Jim Cusdin, Jared Pender, Nick Gillespie and Doug Holloway.
Former New Zealand PGA president Dennis Clark, a regular back when Mt Maunganui hosted the PGA in its heydey, would also tee it up.
Rookes said they got good feedback from the sponsors and professionals after last year, although plans to turn the tournament into something bigger were on the backburner for now.
"We're at a crossroads. We were hoping it might grow into something bigger, maybe a Charles Tour event over four days, but it was prudent to run this year at the same level to see how it goes."
The biggest barrier to expanding into a 72-hole tournament was sponsorship dollars and course availability for four days. Rookes said one solution was to run a Bay of Plenty PGA tournament, possibly utilising the Omanu, Te Puke and Mount courses.
"That way it wouldn't put too much stress on one golf course for four days but other clubs would need to come on board with the idea."
Rookes still has room for several more business/corporate teams at $450 a pop.
Coast Papamoa Beach Pro-am professionals:
Dominic Barson, Jon Bevitt, Joshua Carmichael, Jim Cusdin, Nicholas Davey, Josh Geary, Nick Gillespie, Andrew Green, Andrew Henare, Michael Hendry, Scott Hill, Douglas Holloway, Leighton James, Thomas Lannie, Jason McIntosh, Glenn Millin, Grant Moorhead, Luke Nobilo, Clarke Osborne, Jared Pender, Mark Purser, Hamish Robertson, Troy Ropiha, Dominic Sainsbury, Dean Sipson, Alex Tait, Scott Wightman, Pieter Zwart, Steven Han, Brenden Stuart, Cameron Barnes, Joonsang Chung, Dennis J Clark, Dale Clarke, Blake Cowley, Grant Fisher, Ben Guilford, Andrew Gurney, Gavin Holder, Alan Hyatt, Nathan Ludgate, Brent McKay, Douglas Millington, Gary Parkinson, Shaun Richards, Gi Young Seo, Nick Wilson.