KEY POINTS:
While most of this weekend's golf attention should be on Clearwater for the New Zealand PGA Championship or on Mt Maunganui where most of the top amateurs are playing in the Grant Clements Memorial tournament, we of a certain age are more interested in the New Zealand Seniors
championship which finishes today at Akarana.
As the post-war baby boomers (who mostly started playing in the Arnold Palmer-Jack Nicklaus inspired boom of the mid 60s) move towards retirement, seniors golf is increasingly big business.
There were 140 players at Akarana this week from all over the country as well as from Australia and the US. Waikato and Bay of Plenty run annual three-round tournaments for over 50s. Other associations are considering the same.
In Australia it's a seriously significant part of the golfing market. There, a senior golfer must be aged 55 or older but there are 15 events on the year's national programme, and individual states offer a circuit. Golf Australia even operates an Order of Merit for senior players, who number more than 600.
The international aspect was taken one step further last July with the first New Zealand-Australia 'test' match at Sanctuary Cove on Queensland's Gold Coast.
Australia won that first Ryder Cup-style event - 12-man teams playing foursomes, fourball and singles matches - and the return match is this week at Titirangi.
The New Zealand team contains some names with a significant past. They include two former New Zealand amateur champions, Wellington's Rodney Barltrop and Mt Maunganui's Owen Kendall. There's the evergreen Ken Hankin whom Barltrop beat in the 1974 amateur final. Arthur Parkin, the 1976 Olympic hockey gold medallist who played golf briefly as a professional before being reinstated to the amateur ranks is there, and so is his long-time club and provincial team-mate Mike Leitch.
I can't comment on the records of the Australian team except they thrashed New Zealand 19 matches to 5 last year.
Australia offers commercial and official assistance for the senior team, while the New Zealanders have organised themselves.
The Sanctuary Cove resort even picked up most of the accommodation bill for both teams last year and is assisting the Aussies for the trip to Auckland.
Golf administrators ignore senior players at their peril. While the main emphasis at elite level must of course be for the best young players, it should be remembered that most golfers are over the age of 45 and that their membership levies are the main source of funding for the national body.
The PGA Champions Tour has recognised the appeal of the senior golfer for 30 years and Golf Australia has seen the opportunity too.
It's a market that's ripe for development here.
