Sara Deam leaves golf's amateur ranks in style

Sara Deam with her taonga after winning the strokeplay and matchplay titles at the New Zealand Maori Golf Championships. Photo/Duncan Brown

FOR Hawke's Bay golfer Sara Deam there couldn't have been a better farewell from the amateur ranks on the national stage.

A year after being beaten in the matchplay final at the New Zealand Maori Championships, Deam, 24, won the women's matchplay and strokeplay titles at the Taupo Golf Club's Centennial Course last week.

Puketitiri's Deam, who will start her professional coaching apprenticeship at the Maraenui club's Golf Matters Pro Shop next month, finished three shots ahead of her nearest rivals for the strokeplay title and beat Wellingtonian Jennie Hewitt 5 and 4 in the matchplay final.

"While it was good to go one step better after losing one up to Aroha [Mount Maunganui's Tito] last year the most pleasing aspect of the wins for me was having dad [long-time Napier player Rob Deam] on my bag all week. I won some big tournaments earlier in my career and he has never been there so it was good for me to show him I can win. Dad helped me keep my cool when the pressure was on. It was awesome to have that dad and daughter time," Deam said.

"It can be easy to get sucked into the party atmosphere associated with the tournament and go and do the bungy jump and other tourist attractions in Taupo but dad kept my focus on the job. It was because of him I took up golf as a 17-year-old."

Deam admitted her two strokeplay rounds, an 81 and a six-over par 79 weren't great.

"I just wanted to make the top 16 for the matchplay. Everyone up there labelled me the favourite from day one because some of the other top players from previous years were missing but I still had to perform."

In her semifinal, three handicapper Deam, who was playing her fifth national Maori tournament, beat Opotiki's Tegan White 7 and 6. Her former Napier clubmate Kate Chadwick, who is now Australia-based, was a three-time national Maori champion but unlike Deam Chadwick didn't win both titles in the same year.

"Kate always won one or the other so it was good for me to get both. This is the highlight of my career by far."

Deam's previous highlight was winning the 2015 Wairarapa Open at Masterton and setting a course record of 74 off the whites in the process.

A former Hawke's Bay junior representative and veteran of four Toro inter-provincials with the Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay team, Deam, lost just one of her matches at No 5 for HBPB at last year's nationals. She said she will miss the comradeship of the HBPB team.

"But I feel the time is right to start my three-year apprenticeship to become a professional coach. I've worked here at the Maraenui club for a year now."

"I've coached and managed Hawke's Bay junior teams in the past and my priority is to boost the female playing numbers. I remember when I came through the ranks there were heaps of girls playing ... I want to see those days return."

"There's talk Hawke's Bay will be hosting the Toro inter-provincials in a couple of years time. My dream is to have a team ready to be competitive in that. In recent years our HBPB teams have gone away with a couple of masters players ... hopefully within a couple of years they won't have to play at that level. They can just go away to their masters nationals and have a good time there."

Deam intends to replicate a lot of the work Maraenui professional Scott Overend does with his promising male players. She ranked the Napier pair of Samantha Carroll and Nicole Aluni as players with promising futures.

"I'm looking forward to working with juniors. Because I'm reasonably young and I can relate to them and I find because I have been there and done that they will listen to me."

"During my first couple of years of coaching there will be player requirements ... in other words keeping a number of young players in the game. That will be my baby. Our juniors are the future of golf."

Her final tournament as an amateur will be this weekend's Maraenui Open.

"Maraenui is my new home club and I want to go one better than last year when I finished second to Waikato's Julie Gee. Hopefully my success in Taupo will prove to be a lucky omen for this weekend and I go one better two weeks in a row."

Gee will return with the aim of retaining her title in the 54-hole event. Maraenui's Kathy Olsen is another Hawke's Bay player tipped to perform well.