On The Tee Golf New Zealand Podcast

Former professional tour player and leading golf coach, Simon Thomas, talks about the latest in technology and the ways everything from new metal combinations to solid core golf balls might (or might not) improve your game. As the Director of a successful golf academy at St. Peter’s College in Cambridge, you’ll be surprised to learn just how many junior golfers have enrolled in his programme.

After many years of planning and negotiation between two of New Zealand’s most desired golf clubs (that were located next door to each other in South Auckland) work on an entirely new, merged 18 holes with new facilities, designed by Nicklaus Golf and Patterson Architects, is complete. Our hosts talk with Warwick Hill-Rennie, the CEO of the (now) Royal Auckland Grange Golf Club, to get the lowdown on how it all unfolded.

The legendary coach Bob McDonald, now approaching 80 years old, and considered the best golf coach in New Zealand for more than 50 years (and who is as opinionated as ever) talks to Telfer & Hyde about his life in the game while offering game improvement tips every player struggling with their game ought to hear.

New Zealand celebrity television and radio broadcaster and top ranked amateur golfer, joins Telfer & Hyde to give his take on there the game of the top names in the game are at following on from the US Open and leading up to the Open Championship. Does anyone care about golf at the Olympics? And what’s up with Kiwi pros on tour? Is Lydia Ko making a comeback or not?

Our hosts talk to Thiem Nguyen, Manager of Participation for Golf New Zealand about the new ways in which the lead organisation for the sport in this country is working to be more inclusive and raise the number of people playing the game casually and as members of a club.

Kaye Maxwell was one of New Zealand’s top amateur golfers whose feminist outlook got her in trouble with golf administrators when she refuse to conform to the party line.

Gulf Harbour Country Club, site of the 1998 World Cup of Golf, and one of the most scenic courses in New Zealand, has been up and down. At one stage, members were forced to buy the club off its discredited owner. Our hosts talk with current Director of Golf, Frazer Bond, to find out where things are at today.

Former All Black captain, Sean Fitzpatrick, was back in New Zealand over the summer, so before he and his family returned to their home in the UK, he spoke with our hosts about his game, where he plays, the clubs he plays with, and, for him, the benefits of playing no matter the score.

Has New Zealand’s top professional lived up to expectations? Our hosts talk to Craig Tiriana, the Director of the Danny Lee Tournaments, who has watched Danny’s career unfold from the time he became a sensation as a teenager at Rotorua Boys High School.