For someone who spent the entire week coring and manicuring the greens, trying to tame the fairways at the weekend in 72-hole tournaments became a bit of a drag.
That is not to say she fell out of love with the game.
"I only ever played as No1 or No2," says the former talented amateur who played in the Manawatu rep team in 1984 and 1985 in her final two years studying horticulture at Massey University, before slipping on the Bay's colours from 1985 to 2006.
Besides, when she quit at 44 she took a step back to come to the sobering conclusion that if she could not put time into golf and play to a reasonable level then it was a futile exercise.
"I was here [course] all week so a change of scenery was good."
Nowadays she walks her dog, Millie, through her suburban neighbourhood of Hastings and no one makes a connection with her past but that's just fine with her.
Grappling with tennis elbow for about five years also vindicated her decision.
She hardly picks up an iron, metal wood or putter these days.
"I barely do one or two rounds a year. I'm still down as a three handicapper so I assume it must have lapsed after a while."
For 25 years she was a plus-one golfer but assumes, in the modified handicap system, she would have been more like a scratchy.
She was part of the HBPB team that finished runners-up in the Interprovincials [the country's premier amateur teams' competition] at Hawke's Bay Golf Club in 1993.
"All the other times we were in the middle of the pack."
Van Steenbergen has indelible memories of time spent playing against the who's who of New Zealand women's golf.
Brenda Ormsby, who she suspects is a coach in Bay of Plenty these days, Marnie McGuire, of Auckland, who went on to become a British Open amateur champion, and Liz Douglas, of Christchurch, were a few.
They were older than her so some of their attributes rubbed off on her but not all of it.
"I prefer thinking I didn't want to be a professional.
"I thought all that travel and practice wouldn't be too good for you.
"I thought I enjoyed greenkeeping more."
She struck a chord with former HBPB teammates Diane Crossman (NGC) and HBGC/Hastings Golf Club pair of Debbie Wells and Gaye Hollyman at home.
Van Steenbergen realises she'd still be religiously placing her divots today if she was working in an office.
"You look at all these golfers now who seem to be struggling and not enjoying themselves."
After a week at the Napier course, she tends to find outdoor therapy in recreational cycling or sitting in a kayak "in fairly smooth waters".
"Somehow my weekends are full without playing golf," she says with an impish grin.
The daughter of Dutch immigrants, Van Steenbergen was always on a collision course with everything golf.
Her father, Michael van Steenbergen, who now lives in Katikati, BOP, was a horticultural graduate from the Netherlands.
His degree did not find traction in those days in the Bay where the now lucrative Gimblett wines region was rendered "terrible farming land".
He turned his head to greenkeeping and built the Flaxmere course which is now HBGC.
"We lived next to the course and I had to work and help dad out there from the time I was about eight," she says of Michael, who did not play and later became greenkeeper at the Maraenui Golf Club in Napier.
She was about 10 when then Flaxmere club professional Barry Vivian took her under his wing to hone her skills.
"It got me out of dad's way when I was not attending school," says Van Steenbergen who boasted a 12 handicap aged 12 at Hastings Girls' High School before whittling it down to four when she moved to Katikati School for her last two years of secondary education.
"When you get like that then you've got a problem.
"They give you coaching and want you to get better so you can play for them [rep teams]."
She carried on playing at Tauranga Golf Club when the family moved to BOP where her father kept greens at Western Bay Club (Omokoroa).
Massey University beckoned although she had not visualised a career but was convinced it was going to be in harmony with nature.
On graduating, Van Steenbergen gravitated to Hawke's Bay where she scored the job of 2IC at Flaxmere.
The pathway of coaching did not beckon although she offers tips to her sister, Marina, who is a social hacker in Paeroa.
Any regrets in her playing career?
"Oh no, I'm quite happy with what I did."
