Golfers, cyclists excel at academy

Wayne Mahar | Monday, January 23, 2012 15:00

Waiariki's Academy of Sport athletes have had a fantastic start to the year. After winning the inaugural Tour De Whaka event in Rotorua a fortnight ago, Carl Jones, a member of the Bike Squad, won the first race of the 2012 New Zealand Mountain Bike Cup Series in Dunedin last weekend. Katie O'Neill and Samara Sheppard finished in fourth and fifth place respectively in the women's event.

This success was continued by the golfers at the New Zealand Maori Golf Championships also held last weekend in Rotorua. With more than 170 golfers in the mix, 2012 new intake athlete William Howard won the stroke play section with Landyn Edwards, Ruel Pederson and William Brown (also a new academy athlete for this year) all qualifying for the top 16 match play. Landyn Edwards went on to finish runner up having lost a tight battle on the 19th hole.

Just days later, after disappointingly losing the final, the Bay of Plenty senior representative bounced back to his best form by winning the annual Danny Lee Open at the neighbouring Springfield Golf Club. As well as leading a quality field, Landyn set a course record five-under-par 65 during his second round.

This year also marks a changing of the guard with the arrival of new staff in the Academy of Sport.

I am the academy's manager and Gavin Holder is director of golf. For the last 10 years I have worked extensively with the hugely successful Rowing New Zealand programme and have coached and managed crews at the 2008 Olympic Games and numerous World Championships. I was also the high performance manager of Canoe Racing New Zealand and worked closely with SPARC and what is now High Performance Sport New Zealand.

I am really impressed by what has been achieved here in a short space of time and I am genuinely excited by where we can take the academy in the future. There are 69 athletes on the books for 2012 from a wide and varied sporting background - this number has swelled from four at the academy's start up in 2007.

Gavin, born and bred in Rotorua, brings a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the role. He learned his trade on the greens of the Springfield Golf Club at the ripe old age of 13, turning pro at the age of 23. He has performed with distinction at a number of high-profile golfing tournaments and is excited by the platform already set by the golfers to date.

Wayne Maher is the manager at Waiariki Institute of Technology's Academy of Sport