Golf: Work on merge ralmost done

The merger of men's and women's golf in Otago appears to be only a few weeks away, though there are still a few hurdles to jump.

The two groups have been in discussions for more than a year and Golf Otago executive officer Doug Harradine said he hoped to have everything in place for the merger within the next month.

He said there were still a few issues to work through.

"But we are pretty much there.

"Both parties have agreed to a constitution and we have slowly been working through everything.

"We want to get it right," he said.

One of the decisions which had to be worked through was to how elect board members.

Previously, they could only be elected by their sub-associations.

If someone from Queenstown stood, they could only be voted in by Central Otago members.

Harradine said consideration could be given to changing the form of voting where members would vote for anyone, no matter what sub-association they came from.

Otago men's golf has four sub-associations - South Otago, Central Otago, North Otago and Dunedin metropolitan - while women's golf does not include North Otago, which is part of the Aorangi region.

The new board would be made up of seven or eight members.

It was likely a minimum of two members of either gender would have to be on the board at any one time, Harradine said.

There was also the possibility of electing two independent members, who could lend their expertise to the board.

Sparc wanted provinces to have one body overseeing golf.

Other sports had also merged their governing bodies and golf in Otago was just following that lead, Harradine said.

The new group would be called Golf Otago.

Harradine said the women's organisation would bring a bit more money to the table then the men's group and would use that to subsidise women's levies for the next couple of years.

There were about 10,000 golfers in Otago, about 70% of them male.

Women's Golf Otago executive committee member Glenys Rowley said the groups were working through the process, which had taken a fair amount of time but they wanted to get it right.