Where our editors ventured in compiling this issue<\/p>\n
More women are taking up a club than ever and a new wave of groups is making sure they feel welcome when they do. Golf Fore Her is one of them. I spent a Sunday at Cronulla Golf Club, on Sydney\u2019s southern beaches, at one of their events, a golf day aimed at women who\u2019ve never set foot on a course or who\u2019ve fallen away from it. Nearly 180 showed up. PGA pros and tour pros were out on the course, no pressure attached. The concept is simple: confidence isn\u2019t something you need before you start; it\u2019s something you build by showing up. By the end of the afternoon, that was exactly what you could see happening. \u2013 Remy Taylor<\/p>\n
I never need an excuse to return to Queenstown. My sixth trip to the Kiwi adventure capital coincided with this year\u2019s New Zealand Open and gave me the chance to play Millbrook\u2019s Championship routing the morning after Daniel Hillier\u2019s victory. Despite being just the second day after the end of summer, it was a four-layer morning as a dusting of snow coated the mountaintops. It mattered not. I\u2019ve seen Queenstown in all four seasons (we once had a tee-time at Jack\u2019s Point cancelled due to snow) and it truly is a place for all four. My real problem at Millbrook? A shortage of ammunition. I was using hire clubs and quickly began to run out of balls. I nursed my last pill through the final four holes, including finding the green on the water-ringed, par-3 closer. That I went on to three-putt felt entirely trivial in comparison. \u2013 Steve Keipert<\/p>\n
One of the great joys of this game is that you never quite know who you\u2019ll bump into on the first tee. Golf, it seems, is everybody\u2019s second sport, if it\u2019s not already their first.<\/p>\n
During my recent trip to New Zealand for the Lexus Ultimate Golf New Zealand Experience [see page 108], I was in the Te Arai Links clubhouse when a long-haired chap walked in sporting a Tara Iti caddie bib. The Aussie accent immediately pricked my ears. \u201cI think I know that guy!\u201d I told my playing partners.<\/p>\n
When someone nearby asked \u201cPaps\u201d if he wanted anything, the penny immediately dropped. It was former Melbourne Storm NRL superstar Ryan Papenhuyzen, and he\u2019d just finished a shift at neighbouring Tara Iti. I\u2019d heard on the grapevine the former NRL speedster had turned his talents to looping, but I\u2019d assumed it was nothing more than an occasional carry on tour for his good mate Daniel Gale.<\/p>\n
Turns out his caddie apprenticeship has quickly become a full-time pursuit. Most of his year is spent on the bag for Aussie pro Gale, but during a break in Gale\u2019s schedule due to the conflict in Iran, Papenhuyzen headed across the ditch to Tara Iti to sharpen his craft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played Tara Iti and enquired that if Dubai (the Middle East swing on the DP World Tour\u2019s secondary circuit) didn\u2019t go ahead, would I be able to come over and caddie just for members, or just random people who rock up to play? And they said yes,\u201d he said. \u201cI had a bit of imposter syndrome early. I\u2019m aware I\u2019m not the perfect caddie, but I\u2019m \u2018me\u2019 as a caddie and I think that\u2019s valuable to some people.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Australian and New South Wales star is now a gun for hire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of the year will be with \u2018Galey\u2019, but if I have a few gaps here and there, I\u2019m open to working with other people and I\u2019ve put that out there if people need a caddie for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hmmm\u2026 my club championships are coming up soon, Paps!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where our editors ventured in compiling this issue More women are taking up a club than ever and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16578,44],"class_list":["post-41794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-august-2026","tag-golf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}