McLeans Island member Peter Davidson and a group of friends were a bit bored one day and hatched a plan to play 18 holes on 18 diffrerent golf courses in one day in the Canterbury region.
The plan came to fruition on Monday 29 January when six of them set out to conquer the challenge. The format was to play in a sequence where the first hole played would be No 1 on that course, and at the second course visited they would play No 2, until finally they would be playing No 18 at the eighteenth course of the day. The overall round would–as much as possible–reflect the normal mix of par 3’s, 4’s and 5’s thereby giving them as close as possible an overall par and stroke hole round of a normal course. Here is the scorecard they drew up:
At 7am they teed off at Rangiora on a stunning Canterbury day. At 6.30pm they finished at Tai Tapu having covered over 200 kilometres, and walking 20 kilometres. They played a stableford round with the best in the group having 43 points!
The feeling - In the words of Sir Edmund Hillary and re-released by one of the group on the eighteenth green, “ Awesome day…..We knocked the bastard off ”.
Here is the group having a mid round beer at Avondale courtesy of Club Manager Richard Sinclair.
From left : Richard Sinclair, Matt Egan, Mike Scott, Gary Lay, Dennis Lay, Peter Davidson, Michael Sharp
Thanks go to all the clubs and their personnel who allowed the group to use their courses free of charge, and who in the spirit of the event were encouraging and supportive of the novel concept. Also to the Canterbury Province – where else in New Zealand could you play 18 courses in such close proximity!
