A bungled scheduling of the top interprovincial men's tournaments for 2015 has put the future of the SBS interprovincial event in jeopardy.
The Toro interprovincial will be played on the Otatara course in December next year and the SBS at the same venue is to be played a fortnight earlier.
Several North Island team managers have already indicated they will not be coming south for both events and, as a result, it appears the SBS event will suffer.
With cutbacks to the provinces from New Zealand Golf, financial constraints are a big part of the reason for their concerns.
Despite the SBS organisers supplying billets for players and managers and also providing a financial sweetener, flying south twice within a fortnight seems ludicrous.
The problem arose when the timing of the SBS was changed from the traditional March date to November this year.
This year's event at Otatara received good support but only because the Toro is in Hamilton this year.
Atrocious weather caused the cancellation of the SBS event's second round last month and this has happened on only one occasion in almost 40 years in March.
The best solution would be to shift the tournament back to March, when many provinces play their stroke play championships.
Another possibility is to move the SBS to the weekend before the Toro, effectively combining the two events.
Whatever the solution, New Zealand Golf must make changes to ensure the future success of the annual Invercargill event.
There has been plenty of talk about the issue at St Andrews in Hamilton already this week so the national body's top administrators need to get their heads out of the sand, listen and act.
