Peter Williams: My golfing wish list for a dream start to 2005

The golfing Genie popped out of a hole and gave me 18 wishes for 2005. This is what I said:

1. A marquee name signs up for the New Zealand Open. All those highly accomplished European Tour players will be great, but having someone called Padraig or Miguel-Angel or Darren would be just that much better.

2. A New Zealander wins the New Zealand Open. After what happened last year, the game is in search of a local hero. Opportunity beckons at Gulf Harbour.

3. While we're at it, a New Zealander wins the New Zealand Amateur as well. By all means, bring plenty of classy young Aussies over, but let's give the amateur game a fillip by having one of our own win at Hokowhitu in April.

4. Tiger does not become a father. Golf needs him winning tournaments this year and that's best done without distraction, for now anyway.

5. The International team wins the President's Cup. And the American public realises this team, with three of the world's top-five players, could whip the US by even more than the Europeans did at the Ryder Cup.

6. The press stops calling teenage star Michelle Wie "The Big Wiesy". It's not ladylike.

7."The Big Easy" has some luck in the majors. How many more times will Ernie Els place second in a big one? The guy is too good to have won only three majors in the past 10 years.

8. South Africa passes on to us the secret of their success in producing world-class players. Not just Els and Goosen but Sabbatini and Immelman, too. And watch out for Charl Schwartzel at the New Zealand Open. Some say he might be the best of them all.

9.New Zealand has weather like South Africa. Was that a pig I saw flying above the clubhouse?

10. More young New Zealanders actively chase college scholarships in the United States. The best golfers in the world, at all levels, play in America. We need to have our aspiring stars there too.

11. Our elite coaching system focuses more on the game than the swing. Technical perfection is all very well but the game is about getting the ball in the hole in the least number of shots. You can't help but feel too many of our coaches forget that.

12. The slow decline in club membership numbers is arrested. Clubs and district associations work together to sell the concept of club membership to those thousands of casuals who play a few times a year.

13. Some smaller golf clubs realise their best hope for the future is to merge with another. Like, how much longer can Whangarei continue to support Mt Denby, The Pines, Sherwood Park, Kamo and Waipu ?

14. The wind is not blowing too hard the day I play Cape Kidnappers. I'll take a full box of (cheap) balls just in case.

15. The merger of New Zealand Golf and Women's Golf New Zealand is a smooth transition where common sense triumphs over politics.

16. Serious moves get under-way to bring the NZPGA into the same governing body so golf can have one national administration. After all, isn't that what most sports in this country have?

17. The men's inter-provincial tournament is shifted from the last week in November, so that young men trying to achieve in the classroom and on the golf course are not compromised by an important tournament clashing with exams.

18. New Zealand amateur golfers use their toothbrushes only for cleaning their teeth.