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Jim Lapsley's golfing life follows a pattern not uncommon among the baby boomer generation. He started playing as a kid in Timaru, became good enough to make New Zealand amateur teams but then pretty much gave the game away in his 20s to raise a family and develop
farming and business interests.
He reckons that for the best part of two decades, he'd have played no more than 10 games a year. Then, in 2002, he sold his charter boat and fishing guide business in Queenstown and, with his family much older, decided it was time to play golf seriously again.
Lapsley quickly regained the competitive edge, started mixing it with the best amateurs in the country, won the New Zealand Seniors (50 years and older) last March and in November did what no other New Zealand amateur player has done - qualified to play on the European Seniors professional tour.
So at the age of 53, Jim Lapsley is about to start playing golf for a living. It's a prospect which he finds exciting and terrifying. "It's like going straight to university from kindergarten. I won't be overawed on the golf course but the logistics of the tour are pretty daunting," he said.
"Where do we live, where do I get to practise, what tournaments can I get a start in?"
Neither he nor wife Nolene are experienced travellers. Jim's been to Europe only twice and that was for the qualifying tournaments of 2004 - when he missed a place in the final stage by one shot - and again this year. Nolene's never been further than Brisbane.
But this is a man who has beaten the odds before. Last year, he narrowly avoided serious injury in a jet boat accident on the Oreti River in Southland. Lapsley's an experienced boatie but when he swerved to avoid another craft, he lost control and his boat finished upside down on a gravel bank with him and five passengers underneath, fuel leaking furiously.
Miraculously no one was seriously hurt but the damage done to Lapsley's back and left leg by a 1080kg jet boat lying on him did no favours to his golf for the next few months.
Then, this year, at the final qualifying tournament in Portugal, he was five over par after just 12 holes in the first round. A weaker man might have crumbled but after "a serious talk to myself" he rallied to shoot 74 on that opening day, followed it up with three scores in the 60s and qualified third in a field of 75. Only the top six won full playing rights on the tour.
Lapsley could have turned professional in 1973. After some brilliant performances as a youngster, a group of Invercargill businessmen were prepared to back him.
He turned them down because he didn't think a life constantly on the move would be comfortable.
Now he thinks he's had the best of both worlds. With the youngest of his two children starting university next year, he and Nolene are about to become what the demographers call empty nesters. Few golfers ever get a second chance to turn professional, especially at the age of 53.
New Zealand will have a swag of new touring pros in 2007. But while the youngsters of the Josh Geary generation join the traffic jam trying to forge their way in Asia or the secondary tours of Australia, don't be surprised if a battle-hardened Southlander has the best rookie year of them all.
