She is the first female golfer to play in the senior men's pennants in Hawke's Bay.
Last Thursday night, the Hawke's Bay Eagles Golfing Society named Kate Chadwick its Hawke's Bay Golfer of the Year.
The 20-year-old represented her Napier Golf Club last year in the pennants.
The Hawke's Bay/PovertyBay women's top seed for several years, the big-hitting amateur played her first round of golf at the age of 13 as a Napier Girls' High School pupil in 2005.
The former New Zealand Maori champion played soccer and hockey as a Henry Hill and Taradale Intermediate pupil but yearned for golf at high school.
At the society's annual Halberg Trust dinner night at the Napier club, the final-year EIT nursing student thanked retired Golf Hawke's Bay chief executive Ron Connor, junior development officer Kim Stops and Napier club professional Kim Southerden and his wife, Julie, for honing her skills.
She also lauded the junior head of golf at the Napier club, Eddie McDonald. The society's dinner night raised $13,000 for disabled children in the Bay.
"Kate is someone the society has supported over the years and in two to three years she's done a lot for Hawke's Bay as their No1 golfer," society spokesman Allen Forrest said.
The New Zealand Eagle Society's roots go back to the early 1950s in Auckland to help promote junior golf members.
Forrest, who is also the manager of the Stortford Auto Sales senior men's amateur representative team, said they were preparing for the annual Shand Cup involving the Bay, Wellington, Manawatu/Wanganui and Taranaki next month.
A 10-man senior team and four juniors will be competing.
The HBPB women will compete for the Cybil Green Salver on the weekend of October 5.
