Can legendary All Blacks first-five Grant Fox drive as straight as he once slotted the rugby ball between the uprights?
Does Brett Steven, New Zealand's top tennis professional of the past two decades, have the same touch around the greens as he did at the net in 1993 when he
won through to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open?
And how high do the stakes get when two of New Zealand's richest men - worth half a billion dollars between them - trade shots around the Tauranga Golf course.
Tomorrow is Pro-Am day ahead of the $40,000 Carrus Tauranga Open (which starts on Thursday), with a Who's Who of New Zealand sport teeing it up in the shootout before the serious stuff starts.
Fox heads the list of sporting icons, with the 78-game All Black - who dominated the first-five position from the late 1980s through to his retirement in 1993 - a keen golfer.
Steven once nudged 30 in the world rankings in 1996 on the ATP men's tour and will tee it up tomorrow alongside professional Grant Moorhead.
Another former All Black, Greg Rowlands, will play in a media team, while unwanted Black Cap Lou Vincent is in rich company - his Pro- Am professional is Carl Brooking while the rest of his team is made up of millionaire Auckland businessmen Peter Francis and Trevor Farmer.
Francis, Farmer and business partner Gary Lane, who is playing two groups ahead, own the Wairakei golf course and are reported to be arriving at Tauranga Golf Club by helicopter. Farmer, a property investor, is worth an estimated $275m while media-shy Lane was on last year's NBR Rich List at $225 million. He last year bought 11 Auckland homes owned by the Sultan of Brunei for $35 million.
Broadcasters Peter Williams, Phil Leishman and Brendan Telfer are also in the field, as is Anthony Knight, Sergio Garcia's former bag man who shares caddying duties for US Open champion Michael Campbell.
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
