Royal Wellington Golf Club

I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the evening (Sign)

I then specifically greet you: Jim Meikle and Ken Wiggins and John Gilbert, President, Captain and Manager respectively of the Royal Wellington Golf Club; your wives Elizabeth and Jenny; players; Distinguished Guests; Ladies and Gentlemen. 

As Patron, it has been a great pleasure to accept the invitation to attend this Royal Wellington Golf Club Awards ceremony and to present the Cobham Cup.

This is the first time I have had the privilege of visiting this Club and presenting this award. I understand it to have been quite some time since the last Governor-General visited the Club.

Perhaps the following story from the New Zealand Golf Association’s Golf in New Zealand: A Centennial History by G.M. (Maurice) Kelly, which was published in 1971 sheds some light on lack of “Governor-General presence.”  Kelly wrote:

“Until the 1920s, as elsewhere, the golfer always wore a jacket, even in wet weather. While some players then sported plus fours, the standard attire at Heretaunga was a cast-off office suit. On one notable occasion, a Governor-General who was patron of the club incautiously started out in a white shirt and red braces. The club secretary, having no idea who the player was, rapidly applied the closure. The Governor, it is rumoured, never came to Heretaunga again.”

But that is to jest.  I can assure you that there is no contemporary grudge harboured towards the Club regarding that occasion and in my own case, the absence has been due to a full and active programme.  It is also a distinct pleasure, therefore, to break the drought!

It now seems pertinent to say that while I am the owner of a full set of clubs and a stock of balls, and I follow the general fortunes of the sport, I am not one who can say he is any sort of golfer.  I am rather another of those who has seen the truth in Winston Churchill’s sentiment that:

“Golf is a game whose aim it is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose”.

I can vouch the memory of a number of well executed “cover drives”, “whoosh shots” and “dog legs” in support of this view.

It is also important to mention near the beginning that I had the considerable pleasure of conferring New Zealand’s highest honour on Sir Bob Charles of Oxford in Canterbury. Sir Bob became a Member of the Order of New Zealand in the recent investitures at Government House Wellington in April.

The Order of New Zealand has a limit of 20 living Ordinary Members, with Sir Bob being the 18th current Ordinary Member.  Sir Bob is known as one of the most successful left-handed golfers in the world and in 2008 he became the first New Zealander and the first left-hander to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Given my role as Governor-General, and thereby representative of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of New Zealand, there is a fitting opportunity to say something of the game’s royal connections.

The royal and ancient game of golf is traced back in a number of ways to Roman times when a game called paganicus was common or to Holland where a game called colven was popular in the middle ages.  It is however to Scotland, where the game as we know it originated, golf having apparently been played at St Andrews even before the foundation of the University in 1413.

Known as the “Mother of Golf”, Mary, Queen of Scots was a committed player of the game and was the first woman to play at the St Andrew’s Golf Club in 1552.  In fact, she found herself severely rebuked for playing golf, it was said, “disrespectfully” soon after the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley, in 1567.

It was royal influence that helped the spread of the game throughout Scotland and, ultimately, to its export further afield.  The earliest centres of golf all had associations with royalty or, in the case of St. Andrews, the two other influential pillars of Scottish society—education and the church.

In England, the golf course in Windsor Home Park was laid out on the instruction of King Edward VII in 1901, and in the 1920s another golf course was established in the grounds of Balmoral Castle.  In the 1920s and 1930s the four sons of King George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, played golf, and it is known that, during his brief reign, King Edward VIII played on the Balmoral course.  However, I am told that the only member of the Royal Family who now plays golf is His Royal Highness Prince Andrew, The Duke of York.

Golf reached New Zealand’s shores in the 1860s and was played occasionally and informally.  It took some time for the first club to be formed, and that was in Dunedin.  On 11 September 1871, in the Otago Daily Times it was reported that “The links, although perhaps not equal to those at Prestwick or St Andrews, are admirably suited for the game, and we trust before the season has far advanced to heath that a Golf Club has been organised and that golf promises to become a popular recreation.”

It indeed became a popular recreation and I understand it is today said to be the most popular “participation sport” for men and the second most popular for women.  This is evidenced by the existence of almost 400 golf courses in New Zealand, one of the highest number per capita in the world.

The Royal Wellington Golf Club, founded in 1895, is one of New Zealand’s oldest golf clubs and it has established an enviable reputation of excellence.  It has been a regular venue for the New Zealand Open Championships, and men's and women's national amateur championships and it is no surprise to know that this club has a strong and active membership.  It is no surprise either that Her Majesty consented to the Wellington Golf Club being bestowed with the title ‘Royal’ in 2004 to commemorate the 250th year of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

The Cobham Cup, which I will present in a short time, also deserves some mention given that it is the reason we are gathered. The trophy was given by one of my predecessors and its namesake, Sir Charles John Lyttelton the Viscount Cobham who held the role from 1957 to 1962.

May I offer congratulations to all of those present that played today with the goal of winning the Cobham Cup.

To finish, it seems fitting to read the closing paragraph in the book mentioned earlier “Golf in New Zealand” by G.M. Kelly which seems to describe this Club accurately:

“Dignified and leisurely, Heretaunga is the favoured playground of an establishment, and their refuge or protest against the hurly-burly of an age–
What is life if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.”

And thus, on what I hope is a suitable note, I will close in New Zealand’s first language offering everyone greetings and wishing you all good health and fortitude in your endeavours.  No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.