KEA HAD LAST LAUGH Many pitfalls for unwary golfers at Harper River course

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32801, 29 December 1971, Page 10

KEA HAD LAST LAUGH Many pitfalls for unwary golfers at Harper River course

(By

J. K. BROOKS)

An affable kea on his lofty perch had plenty to laugh about as contestants in one of New Zealand’s most unusual sporting events, the Harper River Golf Classic, struggled to maintain their self respect on Boxing Day.

. There are no bunkers nor water hazards, and hardly any rough at the Harper River course. But there is no need for such refinements. Chip shots over a fowl run, putts through miniature fir trees, and 9-iron flicks off the gravel road are just some of the things which test the patience and ingenuity of the hardy men and women from the high country who try their luck in this offbeat event.

Luck is indeed the operative work at Harper River,

“This is one tournament in which a mug golfer can beat a scratch player,” said Jack Whitmore, of North Beach, winner of the inaugural classic last year. “All you need are the breaks.” The breaks can come when players least expect them. Expressions of grief and woe at an overenthusiastic tee shot at the seventh hole can quickly change to cries of joy as the ball ricochets off a, wood pile and rolls down a bank to finish near the hole. And if a player is off-line with his wedge shot at the third, there is always the chance that a fir tree or the kea’s cage will deflect the ball on to a true path. The man behind the course, and the tournament, is Gordon Ridden, a former farmer who now works for the New Zealand Electricity Department at the Harper

River diversion, a mile and a half from Lake Coleridge. In the two years he has lived at this pleasant little oasis amid the bare, brooding peaks, he has fashioned a nine-hole golf course from the well-manicured grounds around his house and from a paddock full of dust and stubble across the road. “The main idea behind the tournament is to get the people in the district together for a day’s enjoyment,” he said. “The people who live up here are few and far between, but there are several who come here regularly for fishing or boating. They help to swell the numbers.”

Gordon Ridden has not confined his sporting efforts to golf. He has also instituted a boat race on the lake —the Harper Hundred, contested at Easter.

“We call it the Harper Hundred, although the course is really only 12 miles,” he chuckled. “But, like the golf, it serves the purpose of getting the people together.” He has already started work on project No. 3—the formation of a bowling green. The tiny settlement is fast becoming a unique sporting outpost. This year all the regulars were back for the golf tournament, and among the

newcomers were two American servicemen, who found plenty of novel sights for their cameras. Gordon Ridden discovered a plastic flagon top, and used it to good effect as a tee. Jack Whitmore, standing knee-deep in cocksfoot after hooking his tee shot at the third, optimistically asked a fellow player to hold the pin, in case he chipped into the hole. And Kevin O’Sullivan, from Hororata, took 11 at one hole after expending

nine shots in trying to get past a five-strand wire fence. “It might as well have been a brick wall for all the success I had,” he. said. In spite of a welter of four-putts, and a number of hooks, slices and duffed shots, some golf of good quality was produced. Toby Richards, of Hororata, a former Canterbury amateur champion, seemed certain to win after a first round

of 30. But fate took a hand in the second round and he finished with 35, to tie with another Hororata man, Doug McLeod. The play-off over nine holes ended in another tie. The committee members held a brief consultation by the wishing well in the middle of the course. The “sudden death” system was brought into play, and Toby Richards won at the first extra hole.

No-one, however, beat the course record of 28 for nine holes, in spite of the elastic rules. The ball is usually played “off the deck,” but use of tees is not prohibited. Holding back the lower branches of the trees to enable a putt to reach its destination is frowned upon, but levering the ball out of the concrete channelling at the side of the road is permissible.

Course etiquette means not hitting a shot while a car is passing through on its way to Lake Coleridge. The' prize-giving ceremony was held beneath gaily-decorated trees, and the contestants, and their families, all vowed to return next Boxing Day. If there is one thing golfers like, it is a challenge. The Harper River course will always provide one.