The Duke’s Green Keeping

Today’s blog come courtesy of Jon who’s currently  working in New Zealand for 6 months.

Kia Ora (Hello) from Queenstown Golf Course in Central Otago, New Zealand. I arrived here in New Zealand in mid October and after a few days sightseeing in Auckland I made my way down to Queenstown. I had secured a job here after meeting the Superintendent, Ryan Irwin, at the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. I have now been in Queenstown for about six weeks and in that time seen all sorts of weather from one day to the next; I really know what they mean by 4 seasons in one day now! Luckily things are starting to settle down now with most days being warm and sunny. My first week at the course was a case of learning how the green-keeping tasks are done at Queenstown whilst to getting my bearings on the new golf course. As the second week came around I became more familiar with the course and to date I have done most of the daily green-keeping duties that I have previously done while working at the Dukes. We have just had one of the biggest competitions for the club held last week, the Skyline Classic Open and this comprised of the usual tournament preparations that most courses would undertake for the week before a big event. I felt quite relaxed about this preparation as I have work at a number of different tournaments over the past few years.

Outside of work my girlfriend and I have been trying to do as much sightseeing as possible in and around the local area. We have had a weekend away to a place called Wanaka where we did some hill walking to a glacier and visited a local brewery. The whole area around Queenstown is very scenic with large snow-capped mountains and deep cold lakes. We traveled south this weekend to a place called Invercargill and had a day trip to Stewart Island which is just off the south coast of New Zealand. We were hoping to see the illusive Kiwi, but no such luck! All in all everything is “sweet” here and I have got “heaps” to do, so best get on. Good bye until next time!