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Former national assistant golf coach Murray Macklin says the sport will recover from its recent crisis and there are plans to get the country's top coaches back in harness.
Wellington-based Macklin was one of former national coaching director Mal Tongue's five assistants who tendered their resignations following Tongue's recent fall-out with
ex-New Zealand Golf chief executive Peter Dale.
All the resignations, including those of Tongue and Dale, were subsequently accepted by New Zealand Golf. Macklin's fellow assistants were Shane Scott, Bob McDonald, Brian Boys and Simon Thomas.
On Monday, Tongue, Macklin and Scott attended a meeting in Wellington to discuss the future of Tongue's coaching team, which, Macklin said, could see them combine their talents in the form of a new academy.
He said the trio met a "high profile" individual with a "passion" for sport and with "offers of funding to seed our plan and also to help us with our strategy and direction we want to take."
Although New Zealand Golf invited Tongue and his team to reapply for their positions, Macklin said that was never an option because it risked breaking up the group.
He said the group had no intentions of competing against New Zealand Golf.
"We're not intending to establish a breakaway group that works in opposition to the national programme," said Macklin.
"There'll come a point in time that once we've established our plan ... we will take our plan to New Zealand Golf and offer it to them, because we have no intention of breaking away and working in opposition to their programme."
He expected it would take "three to six months" for the plan to materialise.
"We recognised from the meeting how much work has to be done to put everything together and it has to be backed up by good administration and management."
While the coaches no longer had the national body's official blessing, Macklin, who was Nelson's Greenacres club professional from 1980-87, said it was still business as usual.
"We are continuing to coach the players who are within the national coaching framework, irrespective of the situation that we're in right now.
"We will also be inviting as many other coaches to be a part of the programme as we can. In other words, we want to embrace the other coaches out there who might already be working as competent coaches and, if you like, buy into the system that we will be establishing."
- NZPA
