amish Bidwell
Ever wondered what a Canadian greenkeeper does to occupy his time when his golf course is buried by snow? Well, your wait is finally over.
Darren Kotz is head greenkeeper at the Creston Golf and Country Club in British Columbia and with little or no work to do back home,
the nine-handicapper hasn't been tearing up New Zealand courses, but he has been successful all the same.
Having arrived in this country to attend the wedding of his Napier-based sister, Tracey, a brief stop in Taupo was proposed as they wended their way down from Auckland to Hawke's Bay.
It was there that Kotz showed off his golfing skills by holing his fifth and sixth shots at the resort town's famous lakeside hole-in-one attraction. Each person is allocated 10 balls to hit and the attraction's proprietor said that Kotz was the first person ever to hole two shots out of the 10 since the business opened several years ago.
"I wasn't too keen to do it, actually, I thought 'oh, gee there's too many people around," Kotz said.
"I did it, anyway, and I was amazed when the balls went in back-to-back."
Kotz won a helicopter ride around the Taupo region, as well as a bungee jump. While he was happy to take the ride, he said his chances of taking a jump were extremely slender.
With a golf course that is only open between March 20 and October 31 because of the climactic conditions in British Columbia, Kotz said escaping the Canadian winter was almost as big a part of his job as his course maintenance.
But with 45,000 rounds a year played in the four-and-a-half months that the course is actually open, he said he certainly had his hands full during the summer season.
Kotz said the growth of golf in Canada was starting to mirror that of the United States, where the game had become the hobby of pleasures for millions of Americans. While playing numbers continued to climb in Canada, he said huge growth would always be hamstrung to an extent by the bitter winter weather.
