Providing the best ‘a true test’

LOVES GOLF: NZ Golf handicapping and golf services manager and former New Zealand representative Phil Aickin admires the view from the Poverty Bay clubhouse balcony at the New Zealand amateur, which finishes tomorrow. Picture by Paul Rickard

Phil Aickin has a golfer’s dream job.

He travels the country attending competitions with New Zealand Golf as its handicapping and golf services manager, including the New Zealand amateur at Poverty Bay Golf Club this week.

He believes the Bay’s Awapuni Links course could be one of the most under-rated in the country.

“We’ve seen competitors getting really low scores this week, but when the wind blows, it’s a true test for golfers,” he says.

Part of his role with New Zealand Golf is managing the course layout at competitions, which involves positioning the pins to “test” competitors.

“It’s like setting an exam; the course changes play.”

With golfers hitting the ball so much further nowadays, pins need to be set tighter and closer to the edge of the green on courses like the Bay.

Top golfers these days are much younger, he notes.

“The average age is only 15 or 16 for the girls (at the NZ amateur) but they have an average handicap of less than scratch (a handicap of zero).”

Aickin competed as an elite amateur.He represented New Zealand on and off between 1979 and 1990, including three Eisenhower Trophy world amateur team events, and was a member of the Auckland team who won the Freyberg men’s national interprovincial at Poverty Bay in 1981.

He was also in the field at the 1991 NZ Amateur at Poverty Bay.

Australian Lucas Parsons won that year and turned professional a year later, going on to have a season on the PGA tour in 1996.

Aickin says the amateur competition is a valuable stepping stone into professional golf.

During his time competing he played with some of the players who would become national sporting identities and greats of the game, including former PGA Tour professional Phil Tataurangi and 2005 US Open winner Michael Campbell.

Aickin says the game has changed with the times. Modern-era golfers are “real athletes”, who train hard and “hit the ball prodigious distances”.

“There’s more guys and girls putting in many, many hours. They’ve seen what can happen with the likes of Lydia Ko and Danny Lee.”

There are a raft of players at this week’s NZ amateur competition who have the potential to be New Zealand’s next best golfer, he says.

Momoka Kobori is one to watch. She went into the week on the back of finishing second place in The Charles Tour’s Taranaki Open, which featured a field of professional and amateur golfers.

The Charles Tour is now run as a mixed-gender event where men and women play off different tees but for the same trophy, prize money and ranking points.

Aickin says the new format is one of the first of its kind around the world but requires a little more work on his end.

He has to manage a course that gives equal opportunity among the genders — finding a balance that makes it competitive for everyone.

Aickin says despite having to travel four weeks in a row for different tournaments, he is incredibly grateful for the career he has had.

“I’m lucky to be working in golf.”