Back to NZ for some family time and some golf

With the conflict between the USA and Iran escalating quickly, tensions were also high for me personally as I was starting to very concerned that my planned trip home to New Zealand wasn't going to happen due to airspace closures in the region.

I was heading home to spend a few days in Clive with Mum and Dad and to see the whanau, and I was also heading on tour with G.Smith Golf Tours again, and after some last minute flight rebooking out of Jeddah via Singapore I was finally on my way, and to be honest I was really glad to be getting out of the region due to the concerning escalation of the conflict.

I had an awesome few days back at home catching up with Mum and Dad and the rest of the whanau as well as getting some reps in an playing some golf with some of my oldest and dearest friends in Napier. We had a brilliant lunch up at the Puketapu pub again and it was so cool seeing all the kids especially and seeing how much everyone is growing up. Special mention also to it being the first time I got to meet my new wee nephew Reuben, which was really great. I don't get to spend much time at home at the moment with everything going on, so to get this quality time was so important to me and I loved it.

After my time at home it was time to hit the road again with the G.Smith Golf Tours crew with this year's tour heading to the Bay of Plenty. We drove up Wednesday afternoon and settled into a few beers that evening with a good part of the crew arriving that night. Next day we were off to Omokoroa Golf Club to meet the rest of the crew and to get the proceedings under way.

Choice of beds after Day 1 is based on the results form the day and I played pretty averagely at Omokoroa, which meant that my bed choice was fairly sparse by the time my turn rolled around. I chose a single bed in the gimp room in the party house, a decision that would prove not to be the best one I have ever made. Two nights of being part of the group who were last up, pulling stumps at 2-3am each night meant that my golf results in the 2026 tour not being great. We had an absolute screamer of a day on the Friday at Waihi with the same split format as last year, followed by an epic bus trip back to The Mount which culminated in me being almost the most hungover I've ever been at Ohope on Championship Saturday, getting smoked in my matches and losing a 4 man play off in bare feet to come dead last. I was gutted to come so far to play so badly but with self sabotage there is only one person to blame - ha ha.

This weekend is consistently my favourite of the year and it was so great seeing all the guys again and getting to know the rookies as well.Read more