GOLF: Flying doctor has all the shots

MATTHEW Mouat is at pains to get it right.
In the mould of a golfer agonising over what iron to use in his final approach shot to the green, he tries to put his occupation in perspective.
"No, I'm not a surgeon. I think in New Zealand I'm what they call house officers. I work mostly in emergency departments," he tells SportToday.
While living in Havelock North for the past few months, Dr Mouat is in effect a "flying doctor" in Australia.
Having worked in mostly Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, the locum doctor sees himself as a "contractor" who will sporadically go back to New South Wales to ply his trade in country hospitals.
Havelock North-born wife Dr Kelly Mouat, a psychologist who just completed her PhD at Otago University, and their 15-month-old daughter, Sophie, will remain here, comfortable in the knowledge that Mouat's parents, Bryan and Lynn, live next door and Kelly's parents, (nurse) Anne and (orchardist/builder) Gordon Arnott, are also a stone's throw away in the village.
With the wholehearted support of every family member, Mouat, the flying doctor, for now, prefers to drive - not on the highways but fairways of a man-made paradise.
Mouat is the latest member of the 10-men Stortford Lodge Auto Hawke's Bay senior men's golf team competing in the annual Shand Cup Quadrangular Tournament in Wellington this weekend.
His occupation goes a fair way to explaining how the 30-year-old finds time to play golf.
It comes on the heels of a conscious decision to spend more time with his family too.
"I'm looking after our child and Kelly wants to work.
"It's the hardest balancing act - looking after her [baby Sophie] and playing golf," the one-handicapper from Hastings Golf Club says with a wide grin.
Kelly says: "It's wonderful to have Matt on board and to be able to have time to build that relationship with Sophie as well. You know you don't have the opportunity to do that if you're out of the door at 7am and return when she's asleep."
Mouat's playing record is enviable and if he keeps up the momentum it'll be hard for Bay selectors to keep him out of the equation for the men's interprovincial tournament in early December, although he doesn't consider himself as having the "inside running".
Mouat has notched seven Greenwood Cup wins for his victorious Hastings club team and won all his three games for the Bay senior men on debut in the Interprovincials Quadrangular in Gisborne last month.
Touch wood, the bubble won't burst at No 7 this weekend for the amateur who favours his short-putting above other facets of play.
In the early 2000s, he played at No 8 for the 10-man Otago team in a one-off contest with Southland while studying at Otago University for his combined science/commerce degree. Soon after, he moved to Australia to graduate with his medical degree at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, on December 15, 2006, the same time former Queensland and Wallaby No8 John Roe did too.
Born in Waipukurau, Mouat grew up on his parents' farm in Mangaorapa, near Porangahau. Father Bryan boasts a six handicap while brothers Andrew (three handicap) and Tom (nine handicap) are no mugs either.
"Apart from my family, golf is my other passion in life," says self-taught Mouat ,who "hit countless balls in the paddocks" of the family farm as a youngster before playing with his family at the Porangahau Golf Club.
"I had one lesson with Brian Doyle [New Zealand high-performance coach, of Hastings]. He's direct and straight shooting so I like his style."
Mouat's maternal grandfather, Alan Bailey, of Christchurch, was a golf professional who owned a driving range at Hagley Park. Kelly notes how lucrative a business it would have been if it had been running today.
"He gave me my first set of cut-down clubs when I was 3 years old."
The former Hereworth School and Lindisfarne College pupil's passion for medicine came when he broke his right wrist playing rugby for his high school team as a 16-year-old fullback.
"I continued playing for the entire season before having surgery at the Hawke's Bay Hospital [in Hastings]," he said, finding inspiration from the then surgeon, Dr Denis Atkinson, who is now also the president of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association.
"I thought it was quite a cool thing to do. He took a bone graft of my hip and put it into my wrist to stimulate bone growth," says Mouat, who played representative age-group rugby, tennis, cricket and was third-fastest 400m runner in the North Island.
Realising seven to eight years of "hard slog" is required for him to become a specialist, Mouat believes this is his last opportunity to have quality time with his young family and indulge in some recreational activities before committing to studies again.
Looking after Kelly's sister, Kate Arnott, in Brisbane, was also pivotal in helping them choose life over work. She lost her sight and now has the help of a guidedog to live independently.
"It's not much of a life, working as a doctor but, ultimately, I'll go back to specialist training of some kind, probably surgical," he says not long after baby Sophie wanders into the dining room, rubbing her eyes after a midday nap.
"I just didn't have the energy or desire to do it at the time. I wanted to be able to play golf and spend time with Sophie and recharge the batteries, I guess," he says, acknowledging a reduction in their income is imminent although his future is secure.
It almost sounds as if Mouat should have become a professional golfer.
He laughs. "If I was any good at it I probably would have, no doubt. If I won 22 million [dollars] at the weekend I'd probably play golf more often."