Prime Minister favours swing to right

In the unlikely event John Key asks you to join him for a round of golf, don't play him for money.

And don't be fooled if the Prime Minister tries to tell you he's "just a 25 handicapper" or that he's "erratic" and that his short game is a "disaster".

The form he showed yesterday on Millbrook's lush fairways and greens proved he'd be a handy partner in any weekend club golf haggle.

He was at the Arrowtown resort to open its new Coronet Nine course, but once he'd cut the ribbon (appropriately blue), he demonstrated he was no slouch with a driver. Mr Key's playing partners over four holes were former professional Greg Turner, of Queenstown, who helped design the new layout, Japanese millionaire Eichi Ishii, who owns the resort, and deputy prime minister Bill English.

And while Turner was given the honour of the first drive, all eyes were on the PM as he stood poised over the ball.

"I'm looking forward to a hole-in-one; it should be relatively easy," he joked before launching his ball skywards.

The ball sailed over a bunker and settled into hip-high rough.

Turner was quick to encourage Mr Key.

"I guess it's only appropriate it was a bit to the right," he said.

Mr Key's ball lay in the sort of territory most golfers would accurately describe as "tiger country", although, given the world No 1's woes, one hesitates to use such terminology these days.

"What will I need over there?" Mr Key asked.

Someone suggested a wedge but I thought a search party would be more useful.

Then Turner's daughter Charlotte (12) found the ball.

But just as the 100-strong crowd savoured the prospect of seeing the nation's leader hacking his way out of the undergrowth, grass flying in all directions, Turner, reading our minds, intervened.

"Sorry, Prime Minster, but that's just been declared a wildlife refuge; you're not allowed to play out of there," he said, dropping the ball on to the fairway.

Mr Key showed he was a man who remembered a favour a couple of holes later when the group arrived at the eighth hole, which features a huge expanse of, dare I say it again, "tiger country".

Only very good golfers would dare to tackle the tussocks and rushes by trying to drive the green 299m away.

Turner originally had an iron out, to play no-risk route on the left, but then changed to a driver.

"This is one of those cases where the ego is writing cheques the body can't cash," he quipped.

"Tell you what, Greg," Mr Key replied.

"If you get it there, I'll think about giving you a knighthood.

"In fact, let's up the ante; I will give you one."

Challenge accepted.

Turner launched a ferocious drive.

"I can't see that far," Mr Key said.

But up at the green sometime later - the time it took Bill English to hack his way out of the rough, his third shot almost beheading an ODT photographer ("I never liked the press much anyway,") - we discovered Turner's knighthood had been denied by just a few metres.

Back at the clubhouse, Turner said Mr Key's golf game looked "pretty good".

"But I hesitate to suggest he needed to play a bit more; I'd sooner he ran the country, to be honest."

Mr Key described his form as "a work in progress".

"I thoroughly enjoyed it and the voters can feel confident they are getting value for money from me as a politician and not as a golfer."

And he promised to play more golf in his life after politics when he was likely to consult more professionals for advice.

"By that time, I'll be used to taking instructions."