\u201cI\u2019m a little nervous,\u201d Barnaby said before taking his first shot. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m also extremely excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patch Stafford, 10, and Cooper Moore.<\/p>\n
Barnaby has only been playing golf for about five months, but he\u2019s since fallen in love with the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the sweet sensation of hitting the ball right, getting a perfect straight drive, or the perfect hit with a pitching wedge or a four or nine iron.\u201d<\/p>\n
On September 23, Barnaby got the chance to learn from a professional who has claimed back-to-back victories on the very course they were about to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels like an honour to get to play with a pro,\u201d Barnaby said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really exciting because it was Ambrose, which meant we could take his shots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Held at the Tauranga Golf Club, the Carrus Junior Pro-am gives junior golfers the chance to play with some of the country\u2019s top professionals and a glimpse into the intensity and joy of competitive golf.<\/p>\n
The Clubroom Tauranga director Hayden Beard said there were 11 teams of four to five young golfers registered for this year\u2019s junior pro-am and 12 golf pros.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great turnout despite the weather, which is awesome. It\u2019s great to see an increase in young golfers enjoying the game,\u201d Beard said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur junior golf programme is continuing to grow and this is a neat opportunity for them to see how the game stacks up playing alongside New Zealand\u2019s best golfers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pro-am is a curtain-raiser to the Carrus Tauranga Open, in which 129 professional and elite amateurs tee off this week as part of the Jennian Homes Charles Tour.<\/p>\n
New Zealand golf professional Josh Geary. Photo \/ Zach Quin<\/p>\n
On a nearby hole, 10-year-old Patch Stafford was also beaming at the chance to play alongside one of his idols.<\/p>\n
The Hawke\u2019s Bay junior golfer was playing alongside Cooper Moore, who last week won his first title at the Christies Floorings Mount Open.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve met him once before at a tournament,\u201d Patch said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s my idol.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoping to one day become a golf professional himself, Patch practices twice a week and plays in as many tournaments as he can.<\/p>\n
He said the Carrus Junior Pro-am was his warm-up for the Taup\u014d Junior Mini Masters next week.<\/p>\n
Fresh from winning his first title on New Zealand\u2019s Charles Tour, 17-year-old Moore remembered playing in junior pro-ams and said he was happy to be giving back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had my fair few chances of playing junior pro-am and I always loved those chances, so if I can provide a good experience for these guys, it\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
His tips for the juniors was to \u201cjust enjoy it\u201d and \u201chave fun\u201d.<\/p>\n
Carrus general manager Scott Adams said the company had sponsored the Tauranga Open tournament for the last 19 years and supporting its first junior pro-am this year was a natural next step.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good initiative for Carrus to start backing some of our young players coming through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great experience and hopefully they will be able to draw a bit of inspiration from some of the pros and, who knows, the pros might draw some inspiration from some of the juniors.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wished good luck to all of the pros playing in the 2025 Carrus Tauranga Open this week.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Content supplied by The Clubroom Tauranga and Tauranga Golf Club for the Carrus Junior Pro-Am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m a little nervous,\u201d Barnaby said before taking his first shot. \u201cBut I\u2019m also extremely excited.\u201d Patch Stafford,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9331,2948,37871,37868,37866,37872,18836,20733,18126,18480,296,26588,111,139,69,10538,37867,7289,213,37869,37865,61,37870,102,4741],"class_list":["post-42314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-chance","tag-adams","tag-adjusts","tag-barnaby","tag-carrus","tag-chooses","tag-club","tag-gives","tag-golf","tag-golfers","tag-into","tag-junior","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-play","tag-proam","tag-professionals","tag-sports","tag-straps","tag-taurangas","tag-to","tag-trundler","tag-with","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}