The Agony & The Ecstasy

What it’s like to win the New Zealand Open.

The game of golf is all about possibility – the possibility of making the long shot, of getting out of the bunker, of making the green, of sinking that 3m putt and scoring a birdie.

But winning at golf – not least at a tournament like the 100th New Zealand Open – is entirely another matter. Possibility then becomes near impossibility, and golf becomes a game of near-misses and might-have-beens. Winning a golf championship, whether it’s ours or the US Open, is about beating the odds as well as the competition.

Of the many thousands who have played in the first 99 editions of the New Zealand Open, just 59 have held the trophy aloft – though a few more than once – with a little over a third of those 59 being Kiwis. Players may spend their whole careers chasing it, so winning it is always special.