Golf: Cut-price sports nut still lives the dream

You name the sport, and Alex Tait played it as a kid.

"Sport is the only thing I've ever been any good at," says the 32-year-old.

"I've basically been a professional sportsman since I left school - I just can't work out the one I want to play."

Many will remember Tait as the give-it-a-go medium pacer for Northern Districts who played a handful of one-day and festival-type matches for New Zealand - in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Malaysia - in the late 1990s.

Before that, he was a promising junior squash player at the national academy.

Sport is in the genes. Tait is the only child of Rex and Angela Tait, from tiny Maungaturoto near Whangarei.

His father was a highly rated power lifter and hammer thrower, his mum a fringe New Zealand hockey team candidate and B-grade squash player.

And both were golfers with single-figure handicaps.

Ahhh. Golf. The mad obsession. And Alex Tait has got it, to the point that in two weeks he will embark on the next phase of his sporting life - trying to qualify for the third-ranked professional tour in Europe.

Tait started swinging his clubs in earnest about four years ago as the appeal of another day in the cricket field faded fast. Within months, he was in the Northland golf team as the lessons he had as a youngster found new life.

His childhood golf had been limited, fitted around hockey, tennis, basketball, rugby, cricket, squash and just a little schoolwork.

"I'd just look out the window and watch the kids playing sport outside," he says about school.

His father, a teacher, might have scratched his head at times. And Alex Tait has had to scratch out a living, always just missing the best cricket paydays as childhood friends became lawyers and the like.

He played five seasons in a non-professional league for a team from Kent. Soon after he left, the league turned pro. Eleven seasons of continuous cross-hemisphere cricket burned Tait out, and led him to early retirement. As soon as he quit the game, the players' union arrived and "everyone got massive retainers and pay rises".

He has worked as a builder's labourer, storeman and warehouse truck driver. To prepare for his pursuit of a European golf tour card, A-grader Tait worked just 10 or 12 hours a week as a squash coach, and spent the rest of the time hitting golf balls.

He's scraped together $10,000, plus a bit extra through the generosity of mates at the Pines Golf Club. The dream right now, apart from a tour card, is finding a sponsor.

It won't be easy in Europe where he hopes to make the Euro-Pro tour, which lies beneath the full European and Challenge Tours. For a start, there are two qualifying tournaments, with perhaps the top 30 out of the final field of 260 getting full cards.

On the Euro-Pro tour - the tournaments are mainly in England - the players' costs include a 275 ($728) entry fee for each of the 54-hole events.

Winners might pocket 10,000 , but for most of the 200-odd contenders it is a world of bed and breakfasts and hope you can afford dinner. Hastings pro Richard Squire made just 2000 from 14 events last year.

The cherished prize, however, is finishing in the top five on the order of merit, which gets you a Challenge Tour card.

"I've been told it's fun but it's going to be a bit scary. It's not as if it's only $50 petrol money at stake. This is like a $3000 air ticket and the entry fees.

"It's my life savings - I could have a bad season and I'll be a 33-year-old guy who's back at square one."

The laidback Tait will have a few extra shots on the rest of the field - his cricket history means he's used to pressure and an audience.

But he still can't get used to the roar of the crowd - in the street. Tait and his girlfriend, Lisa Hall, are often back-slapped by people wishing him luck. These people are rooting for a cut-price sports star who never gives up.

"I can't understand what the fuss is about," says Tait, scratching his head. The rest of us can. He's living our dream - trying to make it as a pro.

* Yesterday Tait was among the top 16 qualifiers for the matchplay at the Mid-Amateur champs in Rotorua.