Mike Goodacre. Photo/Duncan Brown
MENTION the name Mike Goodacre and many will make an association with "The Voice" of football in Hawke's Bay.
Goodacre is that chirpy bloke behind the microphone who deftly breaks the ice with witticism from the media booth at the Bluewater Napier City Rovers clubrooms, especially when the chips are down.
But few know that the 67-year-old from Hastings speaks volumes with his trusty set of golfing drivers, irons and putter.
It is hard not to miss his name in the sports results section of Hawke's Bay Today most weeks - Goodacre sponsors the "twos" competition at his Karamau Golf Club and habitually wins them.
"I have 49 balls from twos. I'm a little disappointed because I wanted to get 50 this year but never did," he says with a grin shortly before the dawn of a new year.
The Flaxmere resident, on a 12 handicap, is the defending national champion of the 65 to 69 age-group veterans golf tournament, which is part of the New Zealand Masters Games in Wanganui every two years.
He will defend the title on the Waitangi Day weekend from Friday, February 6.
The two-day, 36-hole tourney is played at two courses - the Belmont Golf Club for the first 18 holes and finishing at the nearby Castlecliff GC the next day.
"I carded 78 and 82 off the stick to win by four strokes there the last time," says Goodacre who will be making his seventh trip to the 26-sport games.
This time, he'll have the company of fellow Karamu GC member Jo Edge, also a 12 handicapper.
They will represent the club, based at Golflands in Mangateretere, in singles and mixed foursomes events.
"It's the first, two members from the club will be represented there. It's also a sign 2015 could be a good year for Karamu club."
Goodacre has won two gold medals and a bronze from the tourney to date.
Hastings, Maraenui and Napier club members also are competing in the tourney.
"They have competitors from Australia, the United States and Canada there, taking part in golf and other events," he says, reflecting on the early days when Sir John Walker ran in the Wanganui Mile on the road.
The 10-day games, which run from January 30, boast more than 55 different codes and more than 2400 individual events.
Goodacre, who works at the Stewart Centre, the brain rehabilitation unit at the Eastern Institute of Technology in Taradale, is taking four clients to the games.
"I do things like brain gymnastics with them. Two of them will compete in petanque and the other two in bocce," he says, explaining he conducts sessions for men's stroke groups on Mondays and Tuesdays.
On New Year's Eve, Goodacre played his 100th game of amateur golf.
He played the game at the now defunct Flaxmere Golf Club for two years in the 1980s when Hastings PGA professional Brian Doyle ran the pro shop there.
Doyle still offers lessons at Golflands today.
Goodacre didn't play golf again until 2000 at Hawke's Bay Golf Club (former Flaxmere GC) when he and wife Jane had fulfilled their parental obligations of raising their three children.
Ross, 36, living in South Carolina with his American wife, Shannon, is a former Rovers player who went through the ranks of national secondary schools and age-group teams to become an All Whites midfielder/defender.
Ian, 30, "the family drug dealer" (pharmacist) in Wellington, was a St John's College rower.
"We don't know where Ian's come from. He never asked us for money. He had a bank account even before we knew it because he always had a job," he says of his "red-head" son who is engaged to marry Sarah Toole, of Liverpool.
Then there is daughter Kara, 32, a New Zealand junior rower who is now married to Northland cricket coach Steve Cunis.
"Between them, they had cricket, soccer, netball, canoe polo and, on top of all that, dancing and cello lessons.
"We couldn't wait until they had their driving licences because rowing meant we had to wake up very early in the mornings."
Goodacre is an Englishman who arrived in New Zealand from Bromley, Kent, somewhat fortuitously in 1971.
It was a mid-term Christmas break in London the year before so he went shopping.
"The Tube was chocker so I got off at the wrong station and in front of me was this New Zealand House sign, seeking people to work here."
A brief chat led Goodacre to an interview for a maths, PE teaching job at Morrinsville School, near Auckland.
"I got this air letter from the Morrinsville principal."
The news of his impending departure didn't go down too well with his parents, the late Doris and Bill Goodacre, a fortnight before Christmas.
"Dad didn't talk to me the entire Christmas and mum just cried, wanting to know why I was going that far from home."
It still puzzles the Oxford University graduate why they seemed so worked up, considering his father had served in the army abroad so as a youngster he had attended 16 different schools around the world.
The 23-year-old Goodacre didn't find his parents there hugging, kissing and waving goodbye to him at Heathrow airport that January 14.
"They didn't see me off so I had to take a bus and catch two trains to Heathrow.
"It was the most miserable trip I ever had in my life."
Goodacre met wife Jane at Morrinsville School, where she was the home economics teacher. The pair married in 1973.
He broke the ice that year, returning overseas to see his parents.
They also came here to celebrate Goodacre's 50th birthday.