Off the tee: Trailblazer for unity drives off

Ann Cambie leaves the country's youngest provincial body with a full deck of silverware. Picture / Brett Phibbs

As New Zealand Golf tiptoes through its first year of unisex administration, one of the pioneers of the movement to break down the barriers between the men's and women's games is stepping down.

Ann Cambie has been involved in running the North Harbour Golf Association since it was formed 12 years ago, and she will retire at the end of the year with the youngest of the national provinces holding the men's, women's and masters championships.

It's a far cry from her days of taking the minutes of the inaugural meetings - a job she inherited from Ted McDougall - as the initiative from the Peninsula Club gradually became reality.

What was revolutionary then, an amalgamation of the men's and women's games, is becoming the norm as clubs and provinces follow suit. Waikato made the move this year and Auckland are likely to follow in 2006.

"We only had about 1200 women so we knew they couldn't survive on their own," says Cambie. "The whole concept was to have one association right from the start.

"Women had equal status, and our bigger concern was that North Shore, as the biggest club, would be able to dominate all the voting. So instead of having membership polling, we opted for one club, one vote and North Shore supported it."

Cambie worked from the kitchen table in the early days but now enjoys an office in the North Harbour Stadium grounds she shares with Pam Sowden, the golf development officer and a former touring professional who was a member of Harbour's first provincial winning team in 1995.

As pioneers in the unisex model, Harbour had to deal with two separate national bodies. While the dinosaurs in both bodies had largely passed on, there was still no marriage proposal on the table.

"The men were accepting of us, but the women had more reservations. Being amalgamated wasn't a problem, but they weren't sure whether they wanted another association.

"The fact was they had no experience of anyone forming a new association and they didn't know what the rules were. It was still the Ladies Golf Union, and I think we just startled them."

The women's victory in the 1995 interprovincial at Titirangi was both a huge surprise and enormous fillip for the young province, matched only by last month's inaugural win for the men on the same course.

"It was a home-grown team. Pam was from Pupuke. Kylie Wilson was a local junior. Emma Keeling started here and went north. Terry Doonan was ours, and Heather Booth had played everywhere but had been with us for some time."

Boundaries are always a problem for new bodies and Harbour had to contend with decisions on Warkworth to the north and Waitakere and Titirangi to the west, but there are none of the lingering problems that New Zealand Golf has inherited in its amalgamation.

"I feel the national body's just got to take a stance and say these are going to be the boundaries. That's what soccer did. Somebody's going to get hurt and somebody's going to get a fillip, but we should all just get on with it.

"The main thing is we've got to bring golf into the 21st century. In my 12 years there've been huge changes. Perhaps the biggest has been the youngsters playing rep golf. The under-23s used to be your juniors but now they're your seniors."

Cambie has no qualms about her young players, many these days of Korean heritage: "They're all such neat kids, and they've grown up in the Harbour culture. The Koreans have set the bar higher. If the Kiwi kids want to compete they've got to lift themselves."

* * *

Top young golfing talent from around the world will be on show when Christchurch hosts the inaugural World Schools Golf Challenge from April 7-15, 2007.

The four-round strokeplay event is expected to attract teams from schools in the United States, Britain, Europe, Canada, Asia, Australia and South Africa, as well as New Zealand. Teams will be made up of pupils and immediate past pupils (between the ages of 13 and 19) from secondary schools and colleges.