Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Alert levels given another short extension, National candidate under fire over business record, and possible evidence of alien life discovered on Venus. In a week, the country outside of Auckland will move out of level two and into level one. As our live updates reported, that will be contingent … Read more
Immigration NZ has deemed a golf course designer and three ‘shapers’ to be critical workers, approving their entry to work on an American billionaire’s two courses in Northland. Rebecca Stevenson of BusinessDesk reports. A golf course designer and three “shapers” have been approved entry to New Zealand as critical workers for US billionaire Ric Kayne’s … Read more
Long-serving Newstalk ZB Drive host Larry Williams has hung up the headphones at Newstalk ZB, where has been at since the Palaeolithic era. Alex Braae tunes in for the farewell broadcasts. Jack Tame and David Farrar were on The Huddle with Larry Williams for the last time on Wednesday. They’d been a relatively regular pairing, … Read more
Auckland’s golf courses are huge tracts of heavily subsidised land lying vacant in the middle of a housing crisis. We need to seize them all back, argues Hayden Donnell. Some of the proposals to fix Auckland’s housing crisis are debatable. Jailing all Boomers. Seizing Howick under the Public Works Act. Permanently exiling the land banking … Read more
Though the virtual mini-golf market is crowded, there’s at least one game coming in well under-par. Matt Codd reviews Infinite Minigolf, the putt-simulator for the discerning golfer. When I was 10 or 11 years old, my family went on a trip around New Zealand. Though most details of that holiday are hazy (it was a … Read more
The Albert-Eden Local Board wants to turn half of the golf course at Chamberlain Park, next to the northwest motorway, into a general park for everyone to use. Golfers are outraged. Who’s right? Some nimby issues are hard. When people have a real fear a proposed new development is going to ruin their quality of … Read more
Why are so many women’s sports played in near-empty stadiums? Madeleine Chapman suggests some big changes to bring in more fans. Over the weekend I took a bus to Tauranga to watch the first of three tournaments aimed at deciding the best women’s basketball team in New Zealand. The event was held at ASB Baypark Arena, a huge sporting complex … Read more
If Haru Nomura’s win at the Australian Women’s Open – her first in 72 tournaments – makes her Marky Mark, what does that make runner-up Lydia Ko? Greg Bruce draws the link between early-90s pop and LPGA golf. ‘Marky’ Mark Wahlberg, younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg, scored a number one hit in 1991 with ‘Good … Read more
Caddies are subjected to an avalanche of indignities. In return, they keep getting shafted by their filthy rich bosses. Greg Bruce pleads on behalf of golf’s little guys. There is nothing in all of sport as cute and sad as a caddy. There they go, marching up the fairways, their little rounded backs bent at … Read more
Greg Bruce wrestles with his double standards over the weekend’s golfing double disaster. After the first three rounds at two tournaments on the world’s most prestigious golf tours over the weekend, New Zealand’s two best golfers were both leading. That is a story of joy and of hope. Lydia Ko, world number one and Danny … Read more
Greg Bruce charts the agony of the five-time major winner, who has met the bane of his golfing life in the form of a young man mere weeks out of high school. What must it be like to be Phil Mickelson? For a long time, he lived in the shadow of Tiger; he may have … Read more
A 22-year-old ‘golf scientist’ with a pretentious hat and excruciatingly poor technique may have sparked a mini-revolution in the game, Greg Bruce writes. Some of golf’s great characters and their foibles: John Daly was always perched on the edge of disaster; Payne Stewart wore funny clothes; Chi Chi Rodriguez sometimes pretended to be Zorro; Shooter … Read more
First there was tennis pro Caroline Wozniacki, then there was PGA staffer Erica Stoll. As Rory McIlroy announces his second engagement, Greg Bruce wonders whether the former world number one’s flair for romance is getting in the way of his golf. Over the course of his relatively brief career, a lot of attention has been … Read more
Will Phil Mickelson win the US Open? Will Lydia Ko stay focused? Will Danny Lee finally gain a sense of humour? Greg Bruce offers some thoughts on 2016 and some half-assed predictions. With a new financial crisis and nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula both imminent, we turn our attention now to golf. As 2016 … Read more
Ever wondered what it’s like to be the son of an obscenely rich, hugely successful but emotionally distant father? Try watching the PNC Father-Son Challenge, suggests Greg Bruce. The international golf year ended with the PNC Father-Son Challenge. Before you decry the tournament’s name as more evidence of golf’s sexism, Bernhard Langer nearly played with … Read more
We asked 12 Rugby World Cup winning All Blacks for their Kiwi sporting hero of 2015. Luke Romano picked world number one women’s golfer Lydia Ko. Greg Bruce reviews Ko’s incredible year – and wonders if she might have peaked too soon. Our Bloody Lydia. What a steady, inevitable progression it has been, from the time she first … Read more
The Hero World Challenge, the Nedbank World Challenge and the Australian PGA: the golf year is ending not with a bang but a whimper. ‘Tis the season for half-assing it, says Greg Bruce. Not that I’m trying to say golf is like high school, because the prize money is totally different, but December was always … Read more
It was either the supernova of golf’s brightest star, or just one massive media beat-up. Simon Plumb separates the wheat from the chaff, the Woods from the trees and tries to translate Tiger – explaining why this is not the end, after all. Let’s just put this to bed straight off the bat, shall we: … Read more
Among the identikit beefcakes and banal platitudes of professional golf, one player stands out. Greg Bruce salutes Andy Sullivan, the golf world’s most likeable man. Men’s golf today is full of lean, ripped young muscle gods in tight polos, arriving on tour in their late teens and early 20s, smashing it 350 off the tee … Read more
If you’re struggling to understand what Lydia Ko just won, and how, you’re not alone. Greg Bruce attempts to get to grips with the baffling number of titles handed out at the end of the LPGA Tour. What the hell was happening during the final round of yesterday’s final tournament of the absurdly sexistly-named LPGA? … Read more
In the aftermath of Steve Williams’ controversial book which slammed former boss Tiger Woods for treating the Kiwi caddy like “a slave”, a good news story has emerged about Tiger. Well… Sort of… This is the tale of journeyman tour pro William McGirt. Or, as Tiger Woods would say: “An idiot”. As his brilliantly Dickensian name … Read more
Greg Bruce, author of a masterful feature on Steve Williams, reviews the autobiography of a seething brat who is also undeniably the greatest caddy of all time. I wrote a feature about Steve Williams in Metro magazine early last year. It was a long process, begun in early 2013, when I sent him a handwritten letter, because … Read more
A club sandwich has become the latest thing to threaten Rory McIlroy’s run in the Race to Dubai, writes Simon Plumb. You may think the lifestyle of a top golf professional is all private jets and champagne. But while Jordan Spieth has been basking in the spotlight of stardom, it’s been a bit of a … Read more
Lydia Ko is making it rain. The 18-year-old’s first two years as professional are have netted one hell of a return. How much did you earn today? In fact, how much did you earn in the last two years? Congratulations! But try this on for size: In less than two, full-time seasons on the LPGA … Read more
From an opening day crisis to a thrilling finale, the Presidents Cup, says Simon Plumb, may have just rediscovered its global relevance. Yes, the International team lost (again). Yes, a weekend hacker would have holed more putts than Adam Scott. But after arguably the best Presidents Cup ever has the event turned its biggest corner? … Read more
Picture an animated cityscape surrounded by water. In the centre, a distinctive tower thrusts into the sky, each side an elongated isosceles. A shadow moves across the city. It’s a spaceship, possibly the one from Independence Day. From beneath the mighty ship we see a portal open. A swarm of robots spills forth, descending into the city. They … Read more
It came down to the final tournament of the season for Tim Wilkinson, as he tried to keep his career alive on the Dye’s Valley course at TPC Sawgrass. No one talks about Dye’s Valley, usually. It plays second fiddle to the Stadium Course, with its famous Island green and its status as the venue … Read more
He’s the nicest, richest and most aggressively receding 22-year-old in world sport. But Jordan Spieth is missing something, says Simon Plumb. If anyone loves a nickname, it’s sport. Like a “Fah Q” paddle to a high school senior, a nickname is guaranteed to make a jock foam. Americans, particularly in basketball, perform better than most in … Read more
Calum Henderson studies a near-infinite list of scenarios and permutations to figure out a pathway to FedEx Cup glory for Kiwi hero Danny Lee. Going into the final weekend of the PGA Tour season, any one of the 30 golfers qualified for the Tour Championship can still technically win. A slightly goalpost-shifting points realignment after the … Read more