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Hello, hope everyone had a good Christmas. Thought I would write about my weekend in Arrowtown watching the NZ golf open at the Hills and a competition we entered.
THE FRONT NINE
As I finish work at 11am on a Friday it enabled me, mid afternoon to travel down to Arrowtown which is a stones throw from Queenstown. On the way I stopped at Tekapo and Omarama for refreshments as it around a 4 hour drive. I arrived at 7:30 and then set about putting the tent up, which a work colleague of debs lent me along with air bed, cooking stove and a chair that has a beer holder. I soon got the tent up having had a practice the weekend before and settled down to dinner.
It was about 20 minutes walking distance to the golf course. Not too long ago it was a deer farm until Michael Hill who is a rich guy, who runs jewellery shops here and in Canada, turned it into his own private course. It was not until Bob Charles who won the British Open back in the black and white days, played the course. He told Mr Hill that he had something special and that sowed a seed. So about 9 months ago he set about getting the Open on the South Island for the first time in 21 years, he also has it for the next 2 years. The NZ Open has not gone too well the last few years, but this one pushed the boat out and was part of the European tour which is strange, but I did read the an NFL game was played at Wembley between the NY Giants and The Miami Dolphins as part of their season.
I headed about half way along the first fairway and watched a few players take their second shots. It is here that there is a sculpture of what I think is a spider this is one of many that the owners son has done the others are some dragon flies on a lake and a figure on a bridge. I then headed up to first tee to watch the favourite a Swedish guy Anders Sundstrom sorry Daniel Chopra tee off who is ranked around 140 in the world, boy can these guys whack the ball and with accuracy, it makes you wonder what the Tiger Woods and Ernie Els of this world can do. I then followed the Pom Richard Finch for a few holes; he was 4 shots off the lead going into the third round and ended up being 3 shots in the lead by the end of the round. Around half way through I headed to tented village which was on the practice range, they had shops, corporate stuff and a couple of bars with tables and chairs and sun loungers in a bunker. In another bunker children were building sand castles and playing with diggers. The day now drawing to a close I watched Finch on the last few holes and then headed back to the camp site to watch D Beckham and the L A Galaxy play the Wellington Phoenix. So all in all it was a great weekend, golf, sunshine and lovely scenery.
THE BACK NINE
We headed to Geraldine where we entered a 5 player Ambrose comp, for those who do not know the rules you basically all hit a tee shot and you select the best and then all play from there and then you select the best shot and all play from there and on it goes, you also have to select at least a tee shot from each person during the round, this became interesting when we left Debs tee shot till the par 3 last hole. We were quite confident that we done well.
After the 9 holes we tucked into the pie mash and peas that were laid on and awaited for the results, where the came 3rd out of 16 teams. We also got a bbq set in the raffle, which a lot of people were jealous at as some got plastic plant pots or water pistols; it reminded us of when we won the pub quiz with the Burns family.
THE NINETENTH
Debs has been hitting a few shots in the back garden and is keen.
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